We hold hands against the dark,
as this city crumbles.
Two lost souls against the
city as cemetery, cemetery as city.
Rotting low-rise tombstones dot the horizon,
slashed by skyscraper obelisks marking the spots
where others had fallen.
Others,
and others,
and others.
So many,
until maybe now it’s just us left.
It’s goodbye to all that.
Two perfect fly agarics sprout from the stained rug,
mirroring us across the motel room,
they red skirts and white polka dots,
us begrimed in whatever we had left.
Her nails bite into my palm, and I spin to see
across the room in the broken mirror,
green foxfire shining from my own shattered gaze,
a bioluminescent stare.
We hold hands against the end,
as one fleshy mushroom cap drops out of her parted lips,
her lapis lazuli eyes round with shock.
Another drops,
and another,
and another,
falling like fat raindrops
on a May-showers kind of day.
I grip her and kiss her chapped lips as
the mycelium takes over,
more mushroom than human.
With the fungi and petrichor on my mouth,
we let go, we succumb.
We give in.
Jessica Peter writes dark, haunted, and sometimes absurd short stories, novels, and poems. She’s a social worker and health researcher who lives in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada with her partner and their two black cats. You can find her writing in venues such as The NoSleep Podcast, Haven Speculative, and Brigid’s Gate anthologies, among other places. You can find her on Twitter @jessicapeter1 or at www.jessicapeter.net.
Photo by Oliver Augustijn on Unsplash
