The Sink Where Arguments Go Cold

Our kitchen is a harbor where the dishes learn to drown,

a coastline built of chipped white cups and forks that face me down.

We stack our unfinished sentences in saucers, rim to rim,

and let the sink hold everything that once felt sharp and slim.

~~~

Last night we served a storm for two on plates of porcelain grace,

then left our words half-chewed and raw, abandoned in their place.

Your silence scraped a stubborn pan, my sighs fogged up the glass;

We rinsed our eyes in separate rooms and let the thunder pass.

~~~

Now every bowl is evidence, each spoon a guilty plea,

Each knife a line we almost crossed, then tucked back carefully.

The drain is clogged with crumbs of talk that never found the air,

a filter full of “never minds” and “fine, I just don’t care.”

~~~

We treat the sink like storage for the meals we couldn’t mend,

as if avoidance were a sponge that somehow makes amends.

We soak our plates in lukewarm guilt and hope the past lets go,

But residue keeps writing us in streaks of old I know.

~~~

You rinse a glass like it’s a truce, slow circles in the foam;

I hand you one clean coffee cup, a flag of fragile home.

The faucet hums its metal hymn, a tap-tap slow refrain,

And somewhere in that trickle lives a chance to start again.

~~~

Because our fights are just like grease that clings to what we use:

If we scrub hard in anger, love, the glaze begins to bruise.

But soaked in time and honest heat, with softer, patient hands,

Even burnt-on bitterness can leave the porcelain it brands.

~~~

One day, we’ll learn to wash as we go, not hoard the heavy pile,

to wipe the counter right away when pride begins to spill.

To say, “I hurt,” before the pot has welded to the flame,

and stack our plates in open light, not cupboards carved from shame.

~~~

For now, I roll my sleeves up high and meet you at the brim,

Two dishcloth hearts in soapy ties, half-drowned, yet choosing swim.

We scrape the night from knives and forks, we rinse the blame from bowls,

and talk about the little things while hot water consoles.

~~~

The sink where arguments go cold can be a grave or gate:

A place we throw our tenderness—or where we clean our fate.

Tonight, let bubbles be our balm, the drain our letting go,

and leave the drying rack to hold what we’ve washed clear of “no.”