Cold Promises

I swore she'd always get ice cream on birthdays—

a simple vow, soft as the cone's crunch.

But last year, the promise melted,

slid off her tongue like vanilla on warm pavement,

while I held my hands too tight to catch it.

Her eyes, wide with forgetting or forgiving,

asked if I ever broke my word.

I swallowed back the lie, tasted it bitter,

bitter as the sun beating down that cone.

Promises like sugar, melting faster than we want,

but some stay sticky, clinging to skin,

sweet and stubborn in the memory.