And even the darkness is no good for imagining. No, it’s not love. There’s no love in that. The self-sustaining logic of the system was impenetrable. I was helpless against his logic. I was defenceless against your arguments. I gave in because you are smarter than I, and I don’t know what I want. When it gets this cold outside, who has the strength to argue?

O dear, you disappeared on me. O dear, you never say what’s on your mind. You don’t want to come with me, and so it’s not going to happen. It’s crumbling: the synergy, the trinity, the togetherness, the coming in harmony and synthesis; even the pokiness of co-operation.

Let’s give that relationship a proper burial--what’s on your plate this year is more important; who can blame you if there’s nothing you can do. Life is tough; it’s ok, go hide in that new job. You can’t be held accountable; you’re just a cog in the machine. It’s just for a few years until I’m in a better position to do what I really want, you know—when I’m rich I can finally do some good for other people. But until then, you know it is dog eat dog.

O dear. You are dry, exhausted. It scares you to hear this, but you are wasting your life. Don’t you see the woman on the corner, shaking her ballcap full of coins? Is she a scam-artist, or a victim like you and me? Do we hold the middle-class failures in contempt, yet spare pity for the homeless? Or is it the other way around? Maybe you in your white-collar job, you need pity too? Maybe the hobo deserves to die. Let’s run him over with a semi; wipe away the body with a street cleaner. Because he reminds us that we are helpless. How he insults us; how dare we be made to feel uncomfortable. And the rich man, waiting to get through the eye of a needle, will he get his act together? Stop sipping that coffee, there’s a flyer on your doorstep about tonight’s city council debate. But you don’t care about things at the grass-roots level... do you actually believe the rhetoric you are spouting?

And no, for me, it doesn’t work; it’s not convenient for me to ignore this. If the empire crumbles, if the sky falls, me and my little lady, we got to be good together.