The Soft Bloom

A small, forgotten sun, deep in the crisper.

Yellow gone muted, skin puckered,

then something else. A whisper

of green, a velvet bloom, perfectly sugared

with tiny spores. Soft, insistent, alive.

It didn't smell bad, not exactly.

More like a strange, sweet, putrid archive

of neglect, an overdue tax, slowly.

I picked it up, gingerly, by its stem.

Felt the unexpected give, the soft give

of what had once been firm. A gem

of decay, a lesson on how things live

and then don't. How a purpose, lost,

becomes something else. A quiet horror.

It sat in my palm, a silent cost.

I tossed it out. The air still sour.