One bare matress, pressed against the floor by the hanging haze. Sheets thin, insect wings, sweaty cocoon. Naked, obscene, dirty yellow underwear. Death flavored hand-rolled cigarette butts, plotting, black tobacco spilling from wounded guts. Broken bottles (might as well be dirty needles), damaged damsels, hoarding private vectors of flourescent gloom.

I'm not eating and he's always in the bathroom. We keep each other awake with our respective deaths, shiver and scream. when your skin goes yellow you watch it turn to wax and feel yourself melting if you lay too close to the window. Your saliva glands ache, your lips crack and bleed and the sex is like tearing off limbs. Hangnails infected, hair matted, stars of dandruff, bruised sticky eyes, joints creaking, hearts cursing us, blood defeated.

Spider bodies part-visible from the bellies of dust bunnies. Teardrop cracks in the plaster, tongues of mold outstretched to lick them away. The grate of traffic and stagnant air and dust against rotten sinuses. Smell of piss. Sticky wooden floor, condemned corners closing in.

We haven't left for twenty-six days. We haven't spoken for days' worth of hours. He's not moving anymore.

I'll get there if it kills me.