pull out the seam

loose the bills sewn into the lining of your coat, you're so young. we cross ourselves loosely, not convincing god or anyone until true disaster strikes, in the home, in the heart. then, discovery. then, nightmare. then, the struggle for redemption.

i'm just this much flesh, this much body. too tired for the holy spirit and all the rest. consumer frenzy sucked my soul young, empty promises of strangers with familiar faces, and the constant rush to go somewhere and not a direction. they are slipping pieces of bread in my mouth, very gently. they don't ask, apologize, or really even ask anything, just slip it in and hope i swallow. round-cheeked now, the linings full now, i bulge through the days and the nights.

it is quieter at night than in the day, so we invent machines to make noise that replaces thought. but the mind struggles to free itself, the bread gathers at the seam of my lips, a bill peeks out from between careful, yet worn, stitches. it struggles to free itself and thinks past the noise, and we need everything faster, so we build better machines. we speak constantly. small things about things. now we only even talk about machines. war machines and communications machines and machines to hide us from ourselves are all really the same thing.

the neighbor cat is quiet tonight. i sit on my familiar rung on the ladder they've set out for me to climb. it's so high, maybe it goes to forever, maybe just to the ceiling, or another ladder. i never get very far, i forget why i'm climbing and need to rest. bulging softly on my rung, and it hurts at the corners of everything when i laugh.