Memento Mori

Cancer eats her mouth
her smoking flesh
refusing to exhume the beauty of her youth
exhale
leaving the scent of its fumes
ash lingers
like a thin film of regret over every inch of her
face
silently whispering
"memento mori"

15 March 09

About this piece:
This poem roused me from my sleep. In my dream was a young woman that I knew from Kyrgastan. Despite her sexual fire, age was eating away at her, like a smoldering cancer. Cigarette delicately balanced on between her fingertips, like the precarious dance she did with death. In the dream, her face was falling away, revealing a blackened skeleton, twisting and gyrating in a seductive pulse. My lust became disgust and I screamed in terror, forcing myself to turn away. Gasping and rushing to surface from this dark mass and escape this vision.