🧱 The Walls Are Closing In 🧱 Poem by James McLain

filth collects in the round corners,
sticky as a bad memory,
the floorboards groan like they're tired
of holding me up.
roaches scatter like thoughts I can't catch,
minds have gone mad—
the neighbors scream through paper-thin walls
about things no one should hear.

their bottles pile up like broken promises,
my own reflection, greasy in the cracked mirror,
eyes hollow, lost
in the haze of another night too long.

my only excape is deep sleep and dreams I can't run from.
the world shrinks around me,
each breath a heavier load,
like there's no air,
only walls closing in,
and like me you know theirs no way out.