The Softest Gear in a Rusted World

The city out there is all oxidized steel and dead neon, a machine that forgot how to turn. I lean on the table now, palms flat against the worn planks, feeling the grain like the ridges of some buried engine block—still warm, still holding the heat of hands before mine. The white string bites soft at my collarbones, two thin wires carrying all the current this body has left.
I take off the glasses. My breath fogs the cold air for just a second, a small cloud rising in a room that refuses to freeze. This is how I heal: not with grand machines or polished chrome, but with sunlight slanting through dirty glass and the quiet weight of my own skin. He will be home soon, he always is, his coat still smelling of rain and diesel—and when he looks at me across this scarred table, I know I am the only thing in all that rust that does not corrode.
So I stay leaning here, a soft gear turning slow, letting him find warmth where the wasteland promised there would be none.

Editor: Rusty Cog