second_hand tender_square my throat is parched and stripped of moisture. so often there's a press and pinch between the eyes. my chest tightens like a cinched drawstring bag. wildfires burn outside. cigarettes burn inside. the stench of his habit slathers porous surfaces, slips between the cracks of vents and doors. i cough like a constant clock. he will not relent; makes a false show of moving outdoors to puff and prance. how will half a thousand dollars in damages make up for what he's choked in me? 230726 ... raze my fist walked into the jagged edge of an unused escape hatch and got a temporary tattoo to show for it. the scrawny wound sits on the same knuckle i skinned the day before when my dominant hand was the one to lose its way. the cuts are almost in the same place — the second hand not quite a mirror_image of the first, but something more than a pale imitation of its stronger sibling. 230727 what's it to you? who go blather from