Sometimes,
when I can't sleep at night,
I wonder how long it would take
for someone to find my body
rotting in my apartment
if I slipped in the shower,
or if
I fell into the corner of my coffee table,
or if
I choked on an onion in my chicken salad.
How many unliked messages until my
absence is noticed?
How many unanswered texts until
the annoyance of my reclusiveness
becomes worry?
How many missed calls until that worry
culminates into a knock on my door?
Would my landlord be first to knock?
How many missed appointments for bug spray
would it take for her to break down my door?
Or
would the smell of my festering flesh
alert my neighbors first?
—the odor wafting from my air ducts to theirs.
If my blinds were open, maybe the lady walking her dog
would peer too long in my window
and catch
my body on the carpet.
Would she think much of it?
Maybe after the 3rd walk, 3rd glimpse.
By then, her dog would probably sniff
me through the crack in the corner of my door.
The bugs
the only ones always there
would definitely smell me first, though.
The daddy long legs in my closet and under my sink,
the roly polies that trek the floor's molding,
the colony of crickets who made
home of my storage closet,
the persistent millipedes I've tossed
countless times from my patio door,
in theory, would be interested in
my limbs tangled in shower curtains
maybe
their curiosity would culminate
into a lick,
a pheromone trail,
eventually an army of tiny,
crawling legs
ready to carry me
into the earth.