The Wall Screamer

what brought him/her to this point no one will remember, since there’s nobody to witness & nobody to find her/him if s/he takes it as far as s/he can---still, the walls are closing in & the rain outside doesn’t seem to be letting up, slamming louder against the windowpane (like it’s on some kind of mission to outwit her/him, silence her/him & in doing so, pound pound pound that final nail into his/her coffin created by the loneliness left when all her/his friends washed away like the sands on the beach’s edge). the man in the band s/he’d been listening to, prior to the turn of events where the screaming inside the skull started to get louder than all the rest of his/her thoughts combined, he took the road less traveled, he pumped his veins full of mexican mud, the black eagle, the brown rhine, the sugar of the same color---and misery takes a step like an ant on a razor’s edge, teetering, and like a piss drunk trying to keep in line when stumbling in front of the cop, down goes her/his head & all consciousness stops. digging her/his nails into the walls & raking them down like nails on the chalkboard, but no one’s there to listen, no one’s there to cringe & after all, if ya can’t make somebody cringe, then why ya rakin’ em’ down? but the fingers roll themselves up into fists & the fists start making punches & the hair is flailing & the scream is getting louder & the neighbors would be retaliating, if there were any to retaliate & “the expiration date is coming,” “the expiration date is coming” (s/he keeps telling her/himself that the expiration date is coming), but who’s counting? whilst some count their days with coffee spoons & notches on the wall near the door to show how tall their kids are getting, some watch them burn away with bleeding fingers, fists, torn hair & endless, endless, itching.