The Museum of Self-Erasure by Cassandra

Press the button,
Shift your weight
A mud-caked welcome mat
Beneath the creaking
Crunch of bones

Pass through
Into the suffocation
Of the plastic covered
Everything
Across the finish line
Of crime-scene tape
And wait

She’ll be along with cookies
Tea and niceties
And take your coat
Before she vanishes,
A charlatan of course,
Because how else
Can she know?

It’s been a while now
Since you noticed.

She hired a PR firm
Built an empire of regret
And then meticulously forged
An effigy of everyone
She’d modified, and draped
Them all in sinews
Torn from good intentions—

Signed each piece,
Left lipstick on the placards,
And retreated,

When the last remaining
Patron died.