The phone said fourtwelve and the walls felt like skin

The phone said four-twelve and the walls felt like skin

pressing in too tight, too hot, too thin.

I left the radiator clicking its tongue,

the air in the flat felt already wrung.

Under the highway, the trucks are a talk

I’m not invited to, no matter how far I walk.

The rain starts and stops like a faucet that's broke,

turning the street into a shimmering joke.

A toxic rainbow of oil and the wet,

the kind of a glitter that comes with a debt.

Then the clouds close up and the colors all die,

leaving me under a concrete sky.