His Ashes Went Down The Toilet

His Ashes Went Down The Toilet

She waited until the house was quiet at last,

no footsteps, no temper turning in the hall.

Fifty years of swallowing her own voice,

and now only silence answered back.

They handed her the urn with careful hands,

as if it held something sacred and untouchable.

She felt no tremble in her fingers,

only the weight of years pressed thin.

He had filled rooms with shouting and slammed doors,

with words that bruised deeper than fists.

The air had always seemed smaller near him,

as though even breathing required permission.

She carried him to the smallest room in the house,

the one place he never lingered long.

Cold tiles beneath her steady feet,

a lock that clicked with quiet certainty.

For a moment she studied the pale grey dust.

This was what remained of all that rage.

All that control reduced to powder,

light enough to lift with one hand.

She tipped the ashes into the waiting bowl,

watched them cloud then sink without protest.

No thunder cracked, no voice rose up,

only water moving as it always does.

When she pressed the handle down,

it felt less like anger and more like truth.

The past swirled once and disappeared.

She stood straighter than she had in years.

Outside, the evening carried on as usual,

cars passing, a dog barking somewhere far off.

Inside, the house felt wider, almost kind.

For the first time, it belonged to her.

She chucked the empty urn into the dust bin,

did not look twice at where it landed.

For the first time in her life she knew,

he did not win