she would break down. she would just completely fall apart if she could but afford to. as is, she carries on in harried indignity, sick, clinched up in exhaustion and despair, listening to the clock tick in maddening tocks. the last time she went into the hospital the bills accumlated in the kind of exponential up-thrumming of nerves one experiences in nightmare. she stares out windows. she sits in her recliner, incapacitated in the evening, dreading tomorrow, dreading work, dreading the widening disparity between cause and effect, income and outcome. used to be she could get away for awhile, go out with friends, forget about daily concerns with social meandering, friendly wastes of time, but these days this act too, the act of letting go and enjoining seems impossible, impossible as everything else.

“I just can’t do it.”

“I just don’t know what to do in this.”