let me tell you what it is like to be alone,
she whispers, a hiss in the dark
like the slide of your zipper in the dank grey dawn.
let me tell you what alone is,
and the oil of it slips up into your hands
from the old carpet, 70s shag,
drips forward into your mouth, clogs your eyes.
let me tell you what it is to come unmoored.

she is bare-chested and smoking, her
knuckles yellow against the pale rises, sharp roses.
the free hand taps at her collarbone,
anxious, death rattles to sound out the possibilities,
her cancer not yet diagnosed
though you have cum in her enough times,
the tired womb of her.

so tell. you shrug.

she pulls a long drag, splashes ash into
the glass, two hands up into the mat of brown hair,
spine rotates as she rises, lithe, too young.
the dimples of her back, so impossible.
let me tell you what it is to be forgotten.