24/30: Evictions

Upside down American Flag                                                       Try me, fuckers, try me.
wheatpasted next to Johnny Cash                                                Ambiguous icons. No arguments.
and a robot lady with eagle                                                         Sexy, but not. Ominous.
tattoos on a brick                                                                         Plan your wedding photos here.
building that isn't long                                                                 I am surprised you are not dead yet.
for this block.                     

The key to my room I marked with a Hot Water sticker
from work in a month when all my keys looked the same
and I was frequently drunk and every other day they
entered my room to check for pipe problems or ventilation
problems or bug problems or window problems. They did
this with all the rooms, according notes on computer paper
taped to doors, minutes within compliance of renter's rights
law.

                                                        What do you want from a home
  These apartments are made of steel,
                                                                stucco, glass, cocaine, rat corpses
                                     and Adderall. No one gets out of these
                 apartments alive because these apartments
                                                          are the entire world, you are just moving
                                     room to room to room and sometimes
                    falling out of windows.

Saul is gone. Notice on his door.
Not sure why. He was skinnier and
skinnier and more swollen and he was
friendly enough and we talked
about PJ Harvey's fucked up
relationship with Nick Cave
and he was one of the few people
on my floor that neither twitched
and muttered nor wore
a backwards baseball cap.

I am a cold ghost. I am a fire alarm. I am a broken flatscreen. I am a home invasion warning from the new security team. I am here to answer any of your questions. I am a floor and a ceiling. I am fucking in the weight room bathrooms. I am constantly tuned to CNN while an elderly polish woman endlessly folds laundry at midnight. I am a bed of roaches. I am a hall of rat tails. I am a song about the same neighborhood that sicks in your throat. I am a book about prostitutes at the turn of the century. I am your neighbor's sex life, loud and unforgiving. I am a hot plate and a broken microwave. I am a block without trees. I am a manmade waterfall. I am your neighbor's toilet flushing at five a.m. I am a gathering of poets staring at night skyscrapers. I am a constantly reconstructing view. I am in the middle of everything and sending you everywhere. I am the reason you are gone. I am the reason this building still stands. I am temporary. I am permanent.