I continue - I exist - the rawness of my throat and the warm vapor of my breath confirms this.

The ambulances and police cars outside my window.

Life is comic. The way we govern ourselves is comic. The way we have created strict patterns of behavior and unerringly adhere to them (most do, most do because the consequences are too deeply ingrained) is all so frighteningly absurd.

And yet, like the turn of a key in the cell...like the hanging lock, the strip of light which seems to fall upon that darkness...it is freedom of thought, not freedom of movement. It is the gratuity of expression, the necessary rupture of the cry "I..." even that, even only that, is enough.

Hissing of cars in the street like startled cats. Pounding of bass. It's a Sunday, and people are attending evening Mass. They're praying. They're pouring their desires into an empty offering-box.

The lamp casts a shadow whose edges fan away like a watercolor. Beneath that the digital clock is harshly modern. And beneath that - The Communist Manifesto. "...my right hand had been clutching my left in sympathy..."

My throat - the collar of freckles there - itches. I reach to scratch it with a lazy indifference. My notebook. I'll need a new one for the next semester tomorrow. The next semester, and all that it entails. Here's to starting again.