Spoilage

The kitchen is a quiet vault.

I find the carton in the back,

and though the date is not my fault,

the plastic gives a hollow crack.

It hits the coffee, white and thick,

a curdled bloom of sudden rot.

The sight of it just makes me sick—

the small betrayals I forgot.

I used to drink it fast and cold

before the skin could ever form.

Now everything is growing old

and nothing stays quite right or warm.