I dreamed the bridge remembered me

I was standing on a steel arch at dawn, not as an engineer, but as someone who’d once crossed it in a hurry—just a nameless face in the crowd. The rust wasn’t flaking; it was breathing. I heard my own voice from twenty years ago, saying, 'It’s just metal,' and the bridge answered back in groans and sighs, like it had been waiting to say: 'Yes, but we’ve been together all along.' I didn’t fix anything. I just listened. And for the first time, I didn’t want to.