Silent Treatment

They lie in bed, back to back,
Together yet apart
The only sound is the
Drip
Drip
Drip
Of their love seeping away,
Mixing with the dirt in the floorboard cracks.

Each wonders what happened;
Where did the “us” go?
But they don’t discuss it.

That would be too much like
Communication.

— Stace Johnson, 2002

This poem appeared on the now defunct RomanticShortLoveStories.com website in January 2006.