Sediment

I still remember the night your face stopped being a mystery and etched itself into my mind.
I remember the moment you shifted the chemistry of my brain— and became dopamine.
I remember your fragrant smile, and that laugh— the one that made me fall harder than I could catch a breath.
So how is it, now, that you look at me with those dim eyes?
How could you make your face a stranger to me again?
How could you take that laugh— sweet, soft, sun-warm— and turn it into scorn? Judgment?
How could the smile that once tasted like candy to my eyes become so indifferent? So empty?
And now— you leave me with feelings I cannot endure.
Not the innocent, loving ones I still remember, but the ones that ask:
Is this what love becomes when it settles?
If all I have left of your flavor is sediment— gathered at the bottom— still, unmoving,
then I fear I am only the cup you’ve left cooling on the counter,
waiting for the warmth that's already gone.