2023 raze the year i'm fated to turn forty, it dawns on me that i've become the kind of person who gets excited about new socks and edits pictures of squirrels while listening to slowed-down samples of centuries-old song cycles. i swear at bully birds and hammer my hip into cased openings without meaning to. i let my love hang from my bedroom wall, supported by a threaded screw that's worn a hole twice its size into wood painted the colour of the plaster it conceals. i pick at what's raw so it never has a chance to scab over, carving self-made scars into something i can stand to stare at. now let me show you what you mean to me. 230101 what's it to you? who go blather from