Anthony Wintering

Strip Club Mausoleum

The light fantastic barely reflects off these asylum white walls,

fresh paint covering it's cracks and our scars.

Dope sick for attention and affection, our skin becomes pale yellow.

She stares solemnly at her speckled white toes,

oblivious to the light clawing at my skin, sounding now like an iron lung.

Her crawling ivy tattoo tightens, as if embracing a neck.

I zip up the sweater she had given me and simply leave

alone and diseased, without that anti-septic kiss.

But like the sweater that barely fits me,

I no longer feel fit to drape your ghost across me.

Your gun metal grey eyes match each new skyline.

Such a gentle, unspoken crucifixion.

She used to be so beautiful, so radiant.

Yet now, as if I had poured tar and death across a dove,

her ruined form dances on my gravesite,

moaning suggestively in epitaphs.