look: it’s raining. i’m in a house where the walls are full of anxious scratches, distant dangers. heartbeats trapped in need of a home. i call the exterminator and wait for the tone. i’m in a house being pelted by rain and i am afraid of the shuffles of some creature unseen, crouching above my bed. afraid of the aircraft carriers and helicopters overhead, in such proximity to a military airfield. this house is haunted and so, increasingly, am i. i’m afraid of a great many things these days. i order boxes of wine for contact-free delivery and try to summon numbness. rub my frigid fingers and refresh the news. the talking heads tell me this will be a day remembered in history, and i wonder how to forget. look: history is so heavy a sentence to suffer beneath, and i’ve spent the last year gasping — i wish there was an end to that sentence. i wish there was an end to my thoughts. but they just keep circling, over and over, claws furrowing in the dark. and look: i keep staring up, breathless, waiting for something to fall
