fine

Our lives are libraries and everyone has a card. Some items checked out are never returned. People have their reasons. They forget, they lost it, they planned to keep it from the start. Some items are valuable. Sometimes it's worth it to pay the fine.

Our brains are banks and we're running out of deposit slips. So we slip some money under the table and face the day with the confidence that we can pay without an account. Hiding cash under your mattress won't help if you're sleeping on the floor. Having cash in your pocket doesn't matter if you're standing naked.

And a part of us is a prison, but which part? Our hands, our feet, our shoulder blades when they ache after a night spent on the floor? It's hard for me to locate where we stay locked up because we aren't locked up together. I cannot see you over here in my isolation. How long of a sentence did we give ourselves for committing the crime of being human? How do we punish ourselves? More importantly, how do we redeem ourselves?

Being both the warden and the convict is confusing. We have the lock, but we forgot where we hid the key. Did we lose it? Maybe in an act of desperation we sold it. Some items are valuable. Some items draw more money than the account holds. Sometimes we have to surrender and plead guilty.