The Chain's Complaint

The old hardware store, front locked

for years, maybe decades, now.

Its paint flaked off like dead skin

revealing patches of gray, then raw wood.

But the chain, that thick loop

of industrial steel, meant to hold fast,

it's not just red, or even brown.

It's orange, deep and furry, like moss

but metal-born, a slow infection

that swallowed every link.

It grows there, a shaggy, unmoving beast,

claiming the space, the door frame,

the air around it.

It doesn't rust, it blooms.

And seeing it, I feel a kinship

with all that slow, determined decay,

that quiet giving in

to the elements, to time.

To just letting go, completely.

To just being.

Corrosion's soft sigh.