Brushed Into Silence

The brush stands stiff in the cracked porcelain cup,

faded bristles like old fingers pressed tight.

Mom says he swore by that thing—no newfangled plastic here,

just the rough scent of soap and a man who wouldn’t change.

A glass half full of milk, sweating cool on chipped tile,

soap blackened, stiff in the dish, a smell that lingers

like a ghost no one welcomes but refuses to leave.

No one talked about the brush much—

just the way it soaked years of skin,

washing away days that never quite felt clean.

It wasn’t normal, I realize now,

but it was our quiet ritual,

the smell of something stuck, unshaken,

hiding in plain sight, unmourned and unfinished.