4 A.M. (Somewhere Past Florida)

sitting in a                   swivel chair

in my flat                    in Tallahassee

my gut turns                and aches

I wonder if                  I’ve been

poisoned                      and if it was the

Raid                            that leaked all

over my hands            every time

I sprayed the               house

I think they make it that way

I know I’ve been poisoned

its name was Alfred

and not even 2 packs a day

can take it away

my coffee cup says     to color your

dreams                        but my bodies

broke                           and a crayon

feels                            like a ten-pound

dumbbell

I draw a picture of home

a Pitbull eats the countryside

it had a spiked collar

and a bone in its paw

I think of love

but it doesn’t fit me

I want it badly

and it dances

with my memory

Aiden James is a fiction and screenwriter. His work has appeared in Coffin Bell Issue 3 "From inside a Ford Pinto", Variant Literature Summer 2020 "Liberty Never Leaves Without a Wanting Feeling", Saw Palm Journal "Red" the comic, and The Mid-Town Reader "How to Forge a Firestick". He won the Sassaman Award for Outstanding Creative Writing in 2020.