Naked

Remember when I caught you
dancing on your bed?
And as you undressed my body,
with clouds hanging overhead,
you said,
“We’ll both strip down to nothing
until the room is still and dead.”

The smell of liquor and cigarettes
swallowed the summer air,
as you doubled over
and I held back your hair.
The moment wasn’t perfect,
but I didn’t care.

“We’re not made of heavenly substance,
we’re barely even alive,”
you said,
“how can we live in denial
and expect to survive?”

But it wasn’t too long ago
when we forced a song from our tongues,
and it wasn’t the best of laughter
when the water filled our lungs.
But it wasn’t meant to hurt,
the way our song was sung.

And so we share uncomfortable silence,
our corpses touching the sheet
that’s wrapped around the bed,
on which our toes and fingers meet.
And someday I’ll find you stripped,
long after we deplete.

But until then just keep dancing,
drunk, with heavy feet.