my friends are many-legged

the silence is made up of the ticking
of the clock that matches the slow
drum of my heart. my sole companion
is the empty-eyed stranger who seems
to have gotten stuck inside the window,
her hand always pressed against mine,
only the thick glass between us.

the window is a derivative landscape
painting: streaks of blue for a sky,
splashes of brown and green that
make up an oak tree, slender arms
that hold up an orchestra of tiny
red robins. darker scribbles
crawl across the canvas too:
a mass of miniature stick figures
overflowing the tarmac campus
square like tiny, identical ants.

i wish i could cup some of that vast
blue expanse and bring it to this side
of the smudged glass where my fraying
single-size mattress, sheets woven
from cobwebs, is accompanied by
nothing but jumbled up roots that
have gotten to my head, are now
creeping into my nervous system
with nothing to impede them but
untouched textbooks, empty pizza
boxes and tiny, slimy creatures that
have found themselves a home.

Lola Dekhuijzen is a poet from Amsterdam, whose work explores themes of identity, trauma, and intimacy. She is interested in the ways art allows us to heal. IG: @imissyourgingerhair