cat's cradle

We were playing cat’s cradle and my fingers were more entangled than I’d thought possible, and meanwhile the mornings of midwinter pass in smudges of light, and meanwhile the elevator in your building malfunctions and three people are stuck for an hour, and meanwhile he is counting how many cigarettes he gets through in a day, and meanwhile I am trying and failing to make sense of myself and coming across only the seeds of stories, and meanwhile the apartments next door have a powercut, and meanwhile she nods to sleep with a joint in her hand and the bedroom burns down, and meanwhile my hands seize up with perpetual frostbite, and meanwhile delusions are only exacerbated in this suspended reality, and meanwhile the nearby church shuts down and Sunday mass is another bus ride away, and meanwhile God is clipping his fingernails, and meanwhile no one is there to kiss you goodnight, and meanwhile words are used like keys to unlock the unsettling feelings of whomever hears them, and meanwhile the dictionaries are gathering dust, and meanwhile someone makes a joke because it’s brave and nobody laughs, and meanwhile someone writes a note that reads dear daddy, i’m sorry i had to do it this way… and meanwhile another person votes to invade a foreign country, and meanwhile a boy is raised for war and only war, and meanwhile a girl has lost her voice somewhere among the city streets and she’ll never find it, and meanwhile the birds chatter in empty trees and then somewhere, gunshots leave ripples in the air. The birdsong ceases and now there’s the sound of dead bodies hitting the ground. In the meantime, we are playing cat’s cradle still, and it’s comforting.