29th
Life in Stacked Boxes
How are we not all completely insane?
I walked up to the building daydreaming that my days were spent laughing with heroes. The chatty businessmen were there with their smoldering vices that keep them in the 3 feet of covered space between the wall and the rain. One smiled and held the door open for me, and I woke from my dream just in time for a quick “Thank you,” and to realize that I am here. Again.
I went to my box. They went to theirs. But I’ll see them again soon, when they need to smoke and I need to pee.
I hate smoking, but I get it. I get why I see them standing out there, out of their box, several times each day. In all of this mundane, quiet madness, I get how death can start to feel like life.
Are we all completely insane?
The lights are out, except for one soft desk lamp left by the guy before me, the gray light from the window and the fluorescence nagging from the hallway. I cope with the tiredness, boredom, frustration, by imagining that you’re reading this, and that you care. And also, by melting candle wax, so my box smells like apples, even though I’m freezing again. All the cardigans in the world couldn’t fix that.
If I stayed in this box, I’d lose my whole mind, maybe myself. Yet the fact that I’m leaving probably shows that I already have. In the box. Out of the box. Either way, it doesn’t make sense. Either way, I’m giving something up. And in the end, I’m just going to do what I want to do, because the truth is that either way, we are all completely insane.
