Empty Warehouse Noises

It's 4AM and the cold, empty,
abandoned building I call home
won't stop making noise.
I go to sleep alone, with a loaded .380 in my hand.
There have been 4 break-ins in the past couple months.
And I don't trust the sounds I am hearing.

Sections of the roof crumble and fall throughout the night.
The rats knock over rusted tin cans.
I hear taps on the windows.
Half of the lights have stopped working,
and shadowy figures appear everywhere.
I often wake up to the sound
of the motion sensor alarms,
screaming.

I cock the gun in my hand and call out to nothing.

I shout with anger.

And for a minute, the noises stop.

But that peace doesn't last.

And soon, my senses are being attacked once again. 

And I find myself laying my head on my pillow,
staring at the walls of my tent,
waiting to die.

there are no sugar plums here.

DRY SOCKETS

your mouth becomes stale bread
and your nerves rusty, corroded electrical wire

your teeth become metal
and your jaw calcifies into an antiquated railroad line
rife with old, copper pennies, stagnant and dull,
pressed firmly into the steel.

roots and cables are frozen to the ground
and all the hinges are locked in place.

there's nothing to think about but fossilized pain.

that's what a dry socket feels like.

that gap where your teeth used to be
that now forges a frozen, coal mine deep into the bone,
down to the core of your being.

and with every wisp of air comes a frigid shard of razor
and with every hot drink stings a honed needle of fire.

like hooks in your eyes
there's nowhere to run and nothing to look at
and with every direction turned
you find yourself uttering again and again and again
those two, brazen words:


FUCK THIS.