streetlights poison the evening sky, orange blood blooms in the greywater blue. nobody turns and gawks these days. every conceivable crime caught on film, cut every colourway. i’m stenciled onto the scene, two-dimensional at a certain angle, floating over new storefront and freshly-paved walkway. the night held secrets once; not since 2002. the word “Lynchian” chewed and tasteless, stuck to a black ring bike rack. in the sense that no one lives here, no one shops here, in the sense that we were injected into the bloodstream, killing any cells that come near us. we feel, tremendously, and that sits, above it all, on a transparent slide until it’s whisked away. i am walking home and it will take my whole life, my body photoshopped over six seconds of street looping endlessly.
IAN MARTIN is a former Carleton student and retired movie extra. Their work has appeared recently in VANITY, These Days, periodicities, and NOT YOUR BEST. IAN is the author of six chapbooks and one website, https://ianmartin.rocks/
