Seldom Crucifixes

We watched some tv like we always do. Abandoned swings still chirping. Of orbiting lives in giggles and kicks. There wasn't anything of interest on. So we talked more than usual. Voices like fat markers on cardboard. Thick with new questions in every response. Thoughts on the loosest margins. Words a weight on all our tongues. Each of us happy to be together and none of us glad to be alive.

The clock stopped keeping track a few minutes before nine. As that one hour stretched on into four. A constipated storm cloud over all of our heads. A dollhouse. Ripe with cradles to sleep plastic children. And master bedrooms for poseable spouses. A perfect miniature of a flawed subject. The reality of ourselves shrunk down small enough to shallow. No lie so harsh as the the people we market ourselves as being.

We're peering through the tiny windows. Seeing birthdays and weddings. Jobs and sex. Because they must be real, if we are. Smaller from where we look, but still the same as us. As size is relative. And plastic a part of every wardrobe.

I'm feeling for the keys in the dark. The place to begin. Plant my crutch and go from there. Like all cripples do. Lean against whatever is hardest. Or else try to land on something soft.