Dating a silent killer

in falling in love with each other
we also fell hard into its trap

seeing the beauty in each other's eyes
we were blind to its darkness

and before our young hearts could see
we were entangled in a dance of three

we thought it was just us in our little old nest
but there it was lurking, filled with lust and incest

to begin, it would ever so slightly thrust itself
in our conversations, climaxing our arguments, 
commonplace, we thought, ignoring its mess

slowly and stealthily, with increasing frequency
it started roughing, pounding our loving well

peck by peck, crumble by crumble, 
our foundation disintegrating

as our ground grew weak
it grew stronger
whispering in our ears 
blame and fault for the other

neither of us 
pulled loose the threads
of our bundle, but somehow
it clouded our hearts 
with disdain for the other

and in our loving depth
we dated depression
both repeatedly mating
with this invisible beast
who inseminating us 
with its silent deceit,
conceived our pain and 
birthed our brokenness.

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Thumbnail Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash