Repeated Words

Steam curls up

from my cup,

brushing faces blurred into one.

The same phrase cuts twice

through the murmur—

something borrowed, repeated

as if spoken in sleep.

"You never know,"

whispers the first.

"You never know,"

the second answers, a breath apart.

The words fold over me

like a ghost’s return,

half-remembered, half-lived,

tangled in the pulse

of a moment

already twice broken.