Up in my flat,
it sounds like people getting
drunk,
screaming and laughing and
car alarms going off downstairs.
I imagine it smells like food,
like barbeque, and smoke.
Maybe it smells like boys, that
intoxicating scent of dopamine
before you lose your head
and do something stupid
opposite-***-related.
It probably smells like
the alcohol I haven’t tasted
except in my mother’s wine chicken
since I was fifteen.

My friend, J-Han,
said to me, once,
am I sure this is
what I want to do,
don't you want to live,
are you not
young?

No, I am
born old,
and my daddy agrees,
and everyone says,
that fools live happier lives,
so why are you so serious —
you need to loosen up —
you need to let things go —
don't think so much —
relax
— shut up,
shutupshutupshutup

...

I am lonely
in my flat
but in this large complex
they built, everybody
stands in the lifts
and nobody talks,
and we are all strangers,
and I am
someone who comes and goes
between school
and locks up
before leaving on Fridays
and repeating it on Sunday.