The blown out building in front of my window is watching carefully

4 shots of Jameson and a beer later I still know when I'm almost home. 

Fresh laundry scents waft from the commercial uniform cleaning factory, tendrils twisting

through all my pores.

The bell screeches at 9 every morning.

Loud noises are my reminders of the limits of the living

I am alone in this city and no one is allowed to see me. 

My neighbour keeps asking if I’ll blow him for thirty bucks

I just might. Starbucks pays like shit. 

A crumbling concrete erection is waiting for me 

The stars turn their heads away respectfully.

Sharply permission granted, I enter 

A sizable rat runs over my foot. But I think I imagined that actually. 

I’m always paranoid about rats running over my feet. 

I repeat this line to everyone I know but they never listen

And I’m always seeing things that aren’t there 

A thousand pairs of eyes beg for my gaze, asking to finally please let us meet.

I liquify my senses.

This sickness has my home address, apparently 

I am bloated with gravel, dust and water. 

The structure’s woven belly contains at least a few hyperactive microcosms and miserable squalls

I nurse its kisses and viruses from my illusory breast

Washing all my nexuses, degreasing my vapours.

I envy the ocean scum and flames licking at each persistent fever like hail through my hands.

My apartment is the inside of a tinned can of sardines.

The yellowed walls fucking hate me, they judge my tearing open of plastic packages 

enclosing frozen pastries.

I eat them raw. Teeth dull with pain. It’s not right to be at the dentist in this political climate. 

God thinks of me often, or perhaps not at all. 

Mucous stains take the shapes of the maggots squirming all over my stovetop.

The creamy slackness of the plaster, soft bellied, trails down over the edge of the laminate

Reaching like a fissure. 

Soft maw envelops, enzymes chewing my flesh and my ikea bed frame 

Resting a throat upon the coils softly whispering through straight gums

That it loves the way my skeleton moves underneath my skin.

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Silas James is an emerging queer and trans writer based in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. You might've seen him trailing around town, aperol spritz in hand, or even looking distracted while serving you an aperol spritz at his beloved Cooperative Bar Milton Parc. He enjoys crosswords and Jesus.