The Gilded Rust of Us

I’ve spent my life admiring the way iron yields to salt and time—how a bridge becomes a skeleton, beautiful in its decay. But standing here on this limestone ledge above Positano, I feel like an old engine finally catching fire after years of frost.
You look at me not as a woman, but as if you’re reading ancient blueprints etched into my skin. Your touch is the slow drip of oil onto dry gears; it doesn't just soothe—it awakens something long dormant in the chassis of my heart.
We are two relics adrift in this polished city, clinging to each other like rusted bolts holding a bulkhead together against an incoming tide. I can taste the brine and your heat on my lips, a flavor as raw and honest as copper wire exposed by rain.
In the quiet space between us, there is no noise of traffic or digital hum—only the rhythmic pulse of blood beneath skin, steady as a clockwork heart beating in an abandoned factory. I want to be dismantled by you, piece by oxidized piece, until all that remains is this golden light and the terrifying warmth of being known.

Editor: Rusty Cog