I would prefer not to
Should I still feel alarmed when the sky has turned red? That's not what I wanted to write about, it's what's happening. Maybe being inefficient on the material plane is my last ditch attempt at self-preservation somehow. The slow down, work stop. All these wordless contracts, invisible cords between us, holding the structure in place. I would call it love, that could be sweet. Very love story, madness and romance. Poetry almost. Lighting fires to keep frost from the vineyards, that the vintage isn't lost. Wrestling passionate to the ground, sex in the newly plowed fields. Arm in arm on the way to the harvest festival. The view from above in a hot air balloon. Any and all of these things together.
Others' expectations making demands of my life. Tell me it's not a financial exchange, a bargain, a deal that got struck. My protest, refusal tests the limits of patience and acceptance. All the saved articles from Ebony and Jet combined with all the peppermints and caramels in the world aren't going to make me part of whatever this is. Don't try to manipulate, coerce or threaten me, please, that time is over. I'm not a child and you're not even embodied. Banishing them sent me into an elevator always winding up on the wrong level. It kept taking me to shopping mall, food court or parking lot. I don't want to be in any of those places. Sheep shearing, food court, shopping mall, parking lot. Over and over again.
Was I on something? I was definitely disoriented, bumping into things in the vendor stalls felt especially dangerous being totally broke in a you-break-it-you-buy-it environment. Cameras and eyes trained on me. Their phones talking to the air conditioners and the streaming services and reporting all data back to central. I can't find my way here, can I feel my legs? There may be some pain in the lower back that makes me cry out, but I had to keep going back to the street level, the river level to try the elevator again. Cops and undercover cops checking every carriage of the stopped trains. This isn't where I want to be. I feel safer outside, safer by the river. A river route could carry me. Let's find a way to get out of here.