Virus by Stephen Hastings-King

Words write themselves on my walls. They creep into paintings and photographs, erase elements from image, replace with themselves.

Words take shape in clouds of cigarette smoke. They fill up my ashtrays and pile up on tables.

Some days I trail them behind me like a smell.

When I get home in the evening, words are hanging in the air like dust. They stick to my glasses.

The cabinets in my kitchen are full of nouns. Stale verbs I never eat sit in boxes atop the refrigerator.

Words accumulate on my wardrobe like dandruff. There are fragments of stories in my sock drawer. They might be better than this.