Satin Rust Under a Neon Moon

The city below is a sprawling graveyard of concrete and cold steel, humming like a dying engine in the dark. I feel it all—the grinding gears of ten million lives, the friction of loneliness that wears us down to raw nerves.
But here, on this balcony high above the smog, there is a stillness as heavy as iron oxide. The moon hangs white and sterile, a bleached bone in the sky. I’m wrapped in satin that clings like wet oil to skin, a shimmering armor against the night chill. In my hands, these pages are the only things not rusted through; they hold words of old worlds and soft promises.
You stepped out from the sliding glass door just now, your footsteps heavy but certain on the wooden deck. I didn't look up, yet I felt the heat radiating off you—a warmth like a forge fire in a winter waste. You stopped behind me, not speaking, only letting your breath brush against my shoulder.
It is a delicate friction. The way your hand finally found the small of my back was less like a touch and more like a weld, fusing two broken pieces into something whole again. I closed the book slowly, leaning back into you, feeling the rough texture of your shirt against my bare skin. In this polished urban ruin, we are the only things still pulsing with heat.

Editor: Rusty Cog