Real-life

And white noise, the fans and fluorescents and mumbled apologies, asses swelling fatter, dreams deflating- these all press softly down- insistently, but softly- til the pressure in my ears won't pop. Til I wonder about boxing, about moving furniture, about drugrunning.
The money stacks, and there are casual encounter emails in my inbox, but there- the money's gone already- and who can afford anything casual? Who can lie down before that lie?
I could try.
And black noise, the aches and evils, the shouted accusations and mumbled apologies, old Deuteronomy inside of me- these all press up, and out- they fill my mouth.
I saw my daughter on the street yesterday, and she ran over and leapt against me, beginning to cry, and wanted me to promise her things.
She pulled my beard and told me I WOULD come home every night, that I WOULD take her with me if I ever went out into the rain again. She told me I had gone off by myself and that I had been alone. She told me I couldn't go out in the rain if I was alone. She told me after I left a fire swept through her room and she just screamed, and screamed, and Momma couldn't stop the fire.
Then she listed off the Killy-things that had visited her. A killy-chair, a killy-phone, a killy-fire, a killy-bear, a killy-shark, a killy-bird, a killy-shoe, a killy-glasses. What's a killy-glasses, I asked her, and she looked at me and said
Daddy, its a glasses that kills you in your room at night.
Nothing's going to kill you, babybear, I told her, never, never, never. There isn't a thing on this Earth that'll get through your Daddy.
And she burst into tears. Daddy, she said, you went out in the rain. You were alone.
And I noticed the traffic, and thought how throroughly it would drag me about.
And I noticed Cindy and her dad were standing awkwardly behind the two of us- had been for ten minutes or so- and that I hadn't cared a slice of shit that they were there. And this ball of air inside my armpit inflated til my skull snapped off and floated up til it couldn't handle the pressure, the Troposphere, the Ozone, the True sky, and it burst like a housecat full of m80s and blew chili-meat over everything.