Paint Fossils

we were holding hands over the fountain of youth

me and my hand

two hands second hand

it feels awkward to hold your own hand

they’re the wrong shape

you just tried it now

two hands before your sternum see it messes up everything

the index finger digs into my hand and nails a hole through it

sticking me to the wall

my hair hangs in my face I let it get too long

without a haircut it goes into my eyes

short hair hair I’m proud of hair that’s me

hair that’s thinning from all the undernutrition

hair that’s running out like sand on an old man’s balding egg timer

hair falling out with the contents of my stomach into the toilet

the toilet where Myrtle sings and I see whitewater ghosts playing between the fleshy lumps of regurgitated food

laughing at me

it’s sickening

you’re sickening

we’re sickening

the news is sickening

I’m nailed to the wall hair plastered to my forehead in a mix of oil and sweat

holding my own hand bleeding out from the wall

right index finger is the nail keeping me glued to the wall 

I’m becoming painted to the wall like those spiders and moths

that get buried in the new layers of paint

and then a child finds their fossils in the paint on the walls years later

I was that child

I was that spider buried in the wall

I’m part of all the walls of my apartment

I can’t leave

I’m part of the bathtub and the sink and the stupid fucking toilet

part of the towels and my sweat is all over the drywall

sometimes I try to pack up and leave but the apartment holds me and begs me

linger with me, kiss me

hurt yourself within me

you cannot stop the headlines so create them

sometimes I want to outdo the wickedness of the world

I want to murder someone or myself in the bloodiest way possible

throwing or jumping from the top of the building

a huge masculine messy splat at the bottom

like dead flies like the flies stuck in the walls of the apartment

how many fossils are there in the walls of my skin?

I’m in this bathroom every day and the walls close in and the cheap

linoleum presses in against my legs and curls up at the corners and wraps itself around

my legs and arms and becomes 

part of my skin

I’m slipping into the floor and I have to be out of myself

I’m the fly in the wall

I’m the eyes in the ventilation vent—is that redundant?—in the wall

I’m the dust in the vent I’m the rat shit in the vent

pumping poison into every inch every centimeter every millimeter of air

in this godforsaken apartment

maybe it’s the poison in the air

maybe it’s contagious

maybe the toilet is haunted by whitewater ghosts

maybe someone was killed here

maybe I’ll kill someone here

I’m falling further into the walls and with my skin is coated another layer of

bloody pink and white paint