Ellen Uttley
I lay my hand
across you cheek.
The skin, it splits
the wound
it weeps.
It is not red
but yellow
white.
A horizon split,
on a summer night.
Your mouth
turns upwards
the corners, tugged
revealing teeth
of crumbling wood
the lips around
split and bruise
as they
form the words
that I say
too.
We lay, entwined
in our ripping flesh
the sheets
a stained drenched
mottled mess
we laugh to
remember
the wasted days
of the time before
the rotten haze
the days before
the rumbling moans
the stomping feet
with missing toes
the ripping flesh
the crunching bones
the days before the rotting cheeks
before the feasting
on the weak
we laugh and pick
at each others necks
we laugh at how
little
we each have left,
of time and tears
and hope and teeth
we laugh and laugh
then together,
we weep.
***
Ellen Uttley is a working class writer, poet and mother of two from the North of England. She loves to work with weird subjects and themes, and is currently writing a post-apocalyptic poetry chapbook. Her prose is featured in the anthology Surfing the Twilight, and her poetry has appeared in Lucky Pierre Zine, Kalonopia, Serotonin Poetry and Streetcake Magazine.