get your eyes off me. keep your head down until it's over. hug the walls. this can't be what i think it is. and token gifts are as old as stories of broken backs. stories of pre-dawn truck rides and obscured faces. separate lives. your separate will for your family is everywhere.

you should have stopped it when you had the chance. tell me again why you're doing this. i separate. they're just faces. outlines. as gray as the walls. downsized machines, decreased by a quarter, make history's biggest mistakes in our eyes. i learned to flinch long ago.

don't ask questions. just drown out the noise. a blocked airway. she's suffocating. i can't take these pills fast enough for you. it's the waiting. the somnolent faces. i wish i knew you outside of this. outside of anything at all. say that you're worth more than this as quiet possible. just don't let him find me here. and i know we all bow to vices. but i'll keep mine quiet.