"Thirst’s Lullaby"

A well once sang. Now it gurgles dust. The bucket rots mid-air— held by no rope, for even the rope has given up on the weight of hope. Death sits not in cloaks, but in wood— in waterless grain, where life once leaned to sip from the silence. Beside it, a flower breaks its own spine to listen for moisture in the earth’s heartbeat. But the soil forgot its name after the last raindrop died. No god watches here. Only absence. Only the slow unravel of color into memory. Only the curl of a petal whispering, “I was once red.” And when the final shadow folds into the cracked basin, even the echo will thirst for something to echo back.