Calculus

The end of another tube of clear toothpaste.

Math.

Another dollar fifty. Two more weeks of clean teeth. Six less soups next store. 2220 less calories.

More math.

The lights go out. And with the darkness comes the closest thing to peace I've been able to find behind bars. A 13 inch bluish glow to light my path. Pixels of beautiful people I'll never meet dance shadows around my cell. What's real anyways?

Six inches of connection to the outside world. A fading battery forces my messages into small boxes of time, into smaller groups of letters.

I guess it's all relative. I'm sure the reality show problems, painting my walls, feel just as real to those under the airbrushed makeup and studio lighting as mine do in here.

I guess. 

Store is tomorrow morning. 21 soups and a bag of Alturo blend coffee. The cheapest they sell. A survival pack.

More math.

If there's a difference between surviving and living, I can't tell. Not from in here.

Laps around the sun. Pages of a calendar. Divisions of time. All make believe. We're all just trying to get a rope around the change forever lapping at our shores. It's not possible.

More math.

Somewhere in the future I'm thinking about this moment right now, only I'm free. In a way it's time travel. The fact that I'm stuck here, knowing I'm also out there, looking back here, doesn't make this moment any easier to pin down.

Why does it always feel like I'm dying when I'm just coming back to life? For as long as I can remember I've been dousing this fire with whatever I could find. It's meant to burn hot, I know, but it's not the easiest life. Behind the flames I feel like I'm falling to ashes. Yet in the midst of this inferno is the only place I've found to pay homage to purpose. The only time I can be what those stubborn cards have ordained. The only time my words are worth anything. The only time they're beyond truth and under deception. The only time I'm alive. And yet it still feels like I'm dying.

Maybe it's all the same thing; maybe there is no difference between the two; maybe living is dying.

And now, the instant coffee at the bottom of my cup has grown cold. The battery in my tablet is threatening to surrender. Time cares less. It is on no ones side. Least of all, mine.

And here I sit.

With small boxes of time, 

And smaller groups of letters.

Just a little more calculus on a Tuesday night in prison...