Poem: Last Caress

​Last Caress 

Words by Andrea Janov
Image by Gretchen Gales
​@GGalesQuailBell
QuailBellMagazine.com

​     A soggy couch flipped
    on its arm
                   the   only   boost
                        to a broken window
                    hidden around back
                         of the hotel.
                  Finger tips scrape
 the ledge
      arms shake as I pull myself up.
The rot of stagnant urine suffocates
                   before I’m through the window.

 
From the mezzanine I look                                                                                    
                 down on the lobby                                                                            
      stripped – the gold leafing                                                                            
                       pilfered, oak banisters hang                                         
                 pieces  splintered                                                                     
               on the cracked marble floor                                     
           caked with dirt, charred garbage,                                               
         black soot, ornate pillars decaying                                                     
      from water damage.         
                                 I remember Café Metropolis, the stage,
                                           the couches, the chessboard tables,
       the magazine racks overflowing with zines,
                                                     the clouds painted on the ceiling…
Glass crunches                                                                              
    soggy cardboard squishes                                                               
as I climb the stairs.                                                                                   
                                           The dirt ground into the grout,                       
the hallway lined with kids,
         a table covered in stickers …                                                                             
The door to the roof                                                                                       
   rusted off its hinges,                                                                                  
            the bottom impaled
     into the concrete.    
                                            Sweaty kids moshing
                                                         with black eyes…                                               
I stand at the corner
          of the roof staring down
    at Market and River streets                                              
                the sign, HOTEL  STERLING,                                                                         
                      towers behind me,
                 stoic against the neglect.                        
                                            The fourteen year old girl
                                                   in Jnco jeans and blue streaks in her hair…                                                            
I lean against
      the bottom of the G                                                                                  
         as the wind screams through the gaps
   of the huge metal letters…      
                                         …our lives
                                                   embedded into those floors
                                                         and soaked into those walls.

#Unreal #Poem #SweatyMoshing #LastCaress #Hotel #Love #Sex 

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