The walls breathe in static—
a hum, a crackle, a whisper of wires
pulling tight around my throat.
Every sound a gunshot.
Every shadow a knife.
The milk spills,
a galaxy spreading across the floor,
an apocalypse in white.
Outside, the neon world churns,
spitting teeth, shrapnel dreams.
Everything slick, wet, sharp.
The streets groan,
their intestines spilling out
in the form of cracked asphalt and broken glass.
I can’t leave;
I won’t.
Inside, the air thickens,
a syrup of dread.
Home is a box,
four corners dripping in soft rot.
I sleep under the table
because the bed is too open,
the ceiling too close.
An old television flickers in the corner—
faces in grayscale,
lips moving with no sound.
I try to pull their words apart,
but they squirm like worms.
Every second fractures,
splitting into shards.
Each shard digs in deep—
a hiccup, a phone ringing,
a window slammed shut
by the hands of ghosts.
I try to glue myself together
with the thought of silence.
But silence is a gun too,
a loaded chamber waiting to click.
The wolves circle out there—
dressed as mailmen, as friends,
as my own reflection.
I clutch the blanket,
a shroud, a shield,
a joke.
Safe.
Safe?
Safety is a story they sell in pills,
in pamphlets, in soft voices
that drip honey and venom.
But the wolves are here.
The wolves are me.
The wolves are you.
Not well to leave the house today so I'm staying under cover. Home is safe, almost.