Relationships, for me,
used to be the scent of happiness that lingers—
a mental space one inhabits without effort.
It was all ethereal.
Once again, I was wrong.
I never knew it could take the shape of a carcass—
reeking of suffocation,
faults swollen beyond recognition,
a bloated stench of mental distance.
The amazement I once felt in the present
found its answer when the rot surfaced,
along with the sentence that finally named it:
“I married a maggot.”