the world unravels uniquely for each of us

static grows like moss outside
the window, an angry mass & i ask 
you to look out for me, tell me what's 
happening on the street. you describe
a scene between a man & a woman, they're
talking & they have so many elbows.
they have an upside down dog with eight legs.
i tell you to describe more, tell me 
what the trees are doing & you say
they've all turned into nests for
the hoards of giant egrets walking
slow & measured on the sidewalk. 
egrets would make better people than us
i think & i say that that's enough for
today, because i don't want to hear anything
more about what happens on the TV.
i want just the house. i know the house
& i count the walls for you. i say
one, two, three, four, five, six, seven...
each week or so it grows a new wall & we don't
know how to keep decorating. we hang plates
up, nail them to the farthest wall
which is about a ten minute walk.
the plates look like white pupil-less eyes 
from far away where i ask you 
can sleep for three more days? the alarm clock
just a kitchen timer, clicking as i hold you,
it makes me feel like a bomb & you turn
into a purple stuffed rabbit
or you were always a purple stuffed rabbit.
the windows were always big bold TVs like
the ones i only saw in appliance stores,
no one actually owns TVs that big
i had thought, until they were my windows.
the news behind the static tells muffled
stories about the sun escaping 
our solar system & the planets running scared
like fat beetles, leaving while 
she can. this reminds me that reality
unravels different for each of us.
i wonder what your house looks like
or if you are actually just a purple rabbit
propped up on my bed. if you can hear
the news. maybe your floor is sand.
maybe your floor is grass. maybe you 
are one of the egrets, stalking the streets
learning to live in the radiation of 
a cracking planet. i ask you what
you would do if you only have one
more day on earth & you just stare 
at me with the black bead eyes. 
i tell you that i would open
the door & let the static if i
knew it was my last day. i bet
it feels like a world of gnats 
all over the skin. three more days,
yes three more days, i tell myself.
crawl back in bed, hold you tight
to my chest, listening to the static
growing thicker & thicker.