The incontinent walls
are yellow, like they’ve pissed themselves.

The air is so musty,
it’s grown hair.
Or stolen it from the wrinkled scalps
propped up in armchairs.

Bodies lined up like bin bags
waiting for collection.

The chocolate you offer me
from last Christmas’ Cadbury’s tin
has melted,
gone claggy in the heat
emitted from the radiator-like
rotting corpses.

The strawberry cream blocks my throat.

But the pills clatter so easily
down your windpipe.

# # #

Gemma Saunders is a full time Creative and Professional Writing student and a part-time content writer. She has a critical essay published in Winchester’s Alfred Journal 2018 and her short story, Sheepskin, is featured in issue 64 of Streetcake magazine.

Photo: Ryan Tasto