The Quiet Rust

Iron flakes bloom orange on the gate, a slow fire eating through the hinge while the world rushes past, oblivious to the precise arithmetic of oxidation.

We leave our fingerprints on polished brass, thinking the shine will hold our warmth, but the air is hungry, always grazing, filing down the sharp edges of our passing.

Even the stones soften in the rain, surrendering their strict geometries to the moss that crept up overnight, a velvet blanket over forgotten monuments.

In the end, it is not the sudden breaking, but this patient, granular dissolving— the way a mountain becomes a handful of sand, the way a name rubs smooth from the marker.