So Polite As We Decay

A Southern elegy spoken in lace.

We do not scream.

That simply isn’t done.

We lift our chins.

We cross our ankles.

We sit among the peeling wallpaper

and the untended garden, smothering the house in its embrace,

the vines and leaves peering too closely into the windows,

and we pretend not to notice the way they’ve crept over.

The parlor still smells of rose water and old dust,

a mingling of memory and mildew.

The curtains droop like tired hands,

and the chandelier above us trembles,

the crystals hang like teardrops frozen in time,

as if it remembers laughter once lived here

and can no longer bear the silence.

We host our sorrow like guests we could never turn away,

graciously offering sweet tea and kind smiles,

tucking grief into corners behind porcelain figurines

and family silver that no longer shines.

So polite,

even as the air grows thick with remembering.

Even as the floorboards sigh beneath our weight.

Even as the garden out back blooms out of season

and no one dares ask why.

We speak of pain in unsettling riddles.

We call it a spell,

a softness,

a deep sadness she never quite shook off.

We bless each other’s hearts

and offer handkerchiefs we stitched in girlhood,

now stained with decades of things we never said aloud.

The ghosts here wear perfume and pearls.

They drift through doorways with good posture,

adjusting picture frames

and sitting neatly on the edges of beds

we no longer sleep well in.

We bury our heartbreak under the weeping willow,

but not too deep now.

Just far enough to keep the neighbors from asking questions.

So polite as we decay.

Paint flaking delicately like dead skin.

Books yellowing in the sun.

A haircomb buried in velvet,

with a single auburn strand

still woven between its teeth.

A letter tucked into a drawer,

creased from reading,

never sent.

And when we go,

we do not go loud.

We leave behind folded linens,

half-written thank-you notes,

and the scent of something sweet gone just slightly sour.

We go the way old houses do;

quietly,

slowly,

one room at a time.

And if they find us,

if they remember to look,

they’ll say, “She passed like a lady should.”

They won’t say how the smell of biscuits lingers in the walls,

long after her hands stopped making them.

or the prayers whispered too late.

They’ll only find a glass of sweet tea on the table,

half full,

still warm,

a lipstick ring faded at the rim,

and a silence so soft

you could mistake it for peace.