GHOST

Jack Nicholson as the Joker meets me on the pink tile
of the fourth floor ladies’ room fifteen minutes early so we
can kill you before dawn. I hold his purple coattails as we
walk the hall — black as far space. The curl of his smile
radiating out. His teeth small moons.

Go in is the whisper at the rounded doorway, at the back
of my head, the room lit by a single seashell candle. I float
towards you, past the light, into the hollow pan of my gaze.
The weight of hesitation a swan dive, a burn back to ether.

You are me, you see, and I am you. My twin in this velvet
pocket of dark. Jack coos like a dove — like the dove I am,
like the dove I beheaded on the driving range and cried a
thousand tears.

A movement of my wrist and your neck opens, a crayon line
of red desert sand. Mine does the same — crepe ribbons
painting our chests. Jack grumbles and purrs, fingers the white
paint on his cheek, paints a cross on your forehead, mine.

We laugh blue sparks, this harem of small ghosts.

***

Amanda Mitzel writes poetry and horror in a cabin in the woods. She has work forthcoming in Strange Horizons, and has been published in Drunk Monkeys, Leveler, and The Esthetic Apostle. Her chapbook We Are All Made of Glory & Soft, White Light is available from Bottlecap Press. She has an MFA from The Creative Writing Workshop at U.N.O. You can find her at amandamitzel.com and on IG @amanda.mitzel.