6/23/24

the inside of 'martyr!' by kaveh akbar smells like my roommate in the mental hospital, whose odor, indescribable in many ways, though effusing a clear signal of stale ungirding, grew steadily in potency until my final night committed, at which time i explained i could no longer stand it and was mercifully assigned another room, where i also failed to sleep, and, wandering around the ward floor at five a.m., discovered the door to my former room ajar, with that former roommate in my former bed, having changed beds sometime in the night, seemingly unconscious and joined by an orderly in a mask and many disinfecting chemicals doing something to his former bed. i lost a pair of boxers and a pair of pants somewhere amid that asylum, all three doors securely locked at almost all times, and a credit card number adorned with the necessary particulars scribbled down on a piece of notebook paper and zipped away in one of my pants's pockets. i can still smell the smell, sometimes in my morning coffee, but so much more pronounced between the pages of this bestselling sucky hardcover. the card itself, however, has yet to have elicited any suspicious activity