in the days after my dad died, hordes of relatives swarmed to our house and the world began to shrink, beginning with our living room. it was the size of their beer bellies, all crowded up against one another, making the room small and cramped, and it was the size of their voices as they bellowed condolences, crushing me against the walls.
i feel crowded today, like everything is ballooning and pressing against me until there's hardly a corner left, like the world has gone through the dryer and come out three sizes too small. it doesn't fit anymore. i can't even get my head inside, with all the other things spilling out the brim, and all the balloons coming loose and flying away. everything is flying, the swarming relatives and the blackbirds both, and the balloons, translucent and pale as the sun blazes through them.
in the dormitories, the doors slam in steady rhythm as girls flow in and out of the halls like the morning tide. i wake to the pounding, the openings and closings, the valves of a steam engine or the velvet keys of a flute. surrounded by a skin of sound, i can't tear it away and leap into the silence. we are a machine, "the future is a machine with the mechanics of a dream," and i'm somewhere inside, caught on a cog or gear as metal munches beside me.
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