an opening in architecture or function for wind to howl against.

Several days into Winter and seven windows grew into brick building across from my bedroom built into borrowed burrowed apartment.

Window with slanted ladder. Window with winking curtain. One with candlelight. One with hidden lamp with one-fourth visibility. One with shadows. Two more clarifying darkness.

Who planted seeds made from glass? Translucent tear-dropped stones pressed into earth to create these rectangular holes in buildings. And are there people on the other side and do they watch me and when they find me in my nude, do they stare? Do they wonder why my body flops in different directions like rebellious rabbit ears? Do they question my gender? Do they masturbate to the disturbance of my breasts?

There is so much silence, one must speak out loud to prove one is alive. And then an airplane. And then stomach, overfed and rambunctious, growls. And then dirty fingernail scratches at scalp growing roots of reddened knots or a hairy rash. Oh right….I’m still existing.

Sometimes I need to stand and my window becomes my reflection and don’t judge me for judging me. But I jump up and down because how else can I get these stubborn words out. I have just arrived to this night that lives on the other side of my window.

My bra hangs like a wire-rimmed bat from a doorknob. My breasts are flattened but still ghostly, haunted orbs below my collarbone. I touch them you can’t touch them but I can. And I wait for a Human to arrive at one of these windows, growing out of that brick garden. I wait for a Human to scowl at my unapologetic mashing of my body. Maybe I need to be noticed to notice how odd all this is.

My tongue tastes of London fog. Taste buds are honey’d and hungry. I do not trust the shadows in my bedroom; they are misshapen. Or. They remind me too much of myself.

My windows are nudists. They are monogamous with the sun and moon. They itch with the thought of fabrics or curtain rods nailed into their frame.

Window oh window, we are similar in ways which must be mentioned.

Streaked.
Chipped and cold.
A reflection of what is/ isn’t/ wants to be.
Longing.