My head feels like I’ve been skullfucked, and all I want is human warmth.
Here, in limbo, I wait, with no shelter from feral lies and glowering.
There is just the sound of my own breathing, ragged, wracked with chills,
in terrible harmony with the sound that drifts through the papery walls.
I’m dressed in a cold that I may never shake, frigid air that burns at my skin
and begs me close my eyes and dream of better days, begs me give in.
Teeth are chattering and minutes slip by like ewes over a wooden fence.
Right now?  I am with you in Rockland.  It’s me, the grey-beige paint
over a concrete facade—I’m here, hands of chipping gloss unable to reach out
to take your touch, to soothe us both into steady compliance.  It’ll be okay.
January air creeps in through hate-worn cracks, voices sound like tribal chants,
pulling your mind into the singer’s personal madness.  I look down, I see,
and God as my witness, I want to help you to stay here in the silence with me.
But more and more, I feel the wind chill and factor out my own salvation.