Half a Cup

By ylake

Sat, 04 Feb 2017

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I thought you were Midas’s son, how you could gild my days with your presence, your touch. Your breath as you slept filled the room with a golden haze, so that when we awoke our bodies were nestled together in a fine, glittering dust. I was drawn to you like a greedy magpie, searching to fill her nest with all I could steal from you, the glittering trinkets of your affection. We never made it to our golden anniversary; it wasn’t to be. It was some time before I noticed the gold slowly becoming a crust of mud, the fool's gold you had brought me which tarnished with each advanced hour. You were Midas’s son, but only half-blood, half-hearted in your craft. Then you were gone to show the others your tricks, as it was unspoken between us, but you knew I had seen through the prestige, there was nothing left to make me gasp. The remnants of the riches we shared now sit all around, too unloved to be squabbled over – in the dresser, the cupboards, these half-possessions, wedding gifts sitting half-dead, half-rotten on the shelves. I take a cup for my morning tea and see it withered where you once held it to your lips. I stare into it like a mirror, half there, half empty. 

I thought I was immune to you, already made of stone. Now I know I must give this house, these things, the kiss of life. Your useless gold is to be transformed with tricks of my own, the alchemy of the broken-hearted.