The Patient Decay

She brings it in every few days,

the jar catching the light,

and inside, the liquid

is becoming something else.

Not rot. Not yet.

Transformation. Intentional.

She knows what's happening.

She lets it happen.

She shows me the cloudiness,

the movement under the surface,

the way the thing inside

is breaking down and building itself

into what comes next.

"It takes time," she says.

Like this is obvious.

Like patience is just another ingredient

you add and wait for,

like she hasn't been standing

in the window

watching decomposition

the way other people watch

a garden grow.

I ask her if she's afraid

of what it might become.

She looks at me

like I've asked something

so fundamentally wrong

it doesn't even deserve an answer.

"It's supposed to change,"

she says.

And I realize I've spent my life

afraid of exactly this—

of letting something I made

break down into its parts

and trust that something

worth having

might come out

on the other side.

The jar sits on her desk,

cloudier than yesterday,

moving toward

something I don't have

the patience to understand yet.