in the evenings, the world shrinks to the size of her apartment.
it floats and tilts on an island in the void.
the blinds stay closed, the door only opens when her mother leaves.
it opens to a wall.
in the daytime, the light heats up the back of the shutters, trapped outside as it heats up the walls and floorboards.
the smoke makes the room as hot as it is small.
the air conditioning makes it freezing cold all over again until the roaring stops and you realize it had been on the entire time.
we learn to overshare while it speaks.
silence ourselves when it doesn't.
let the world slowly expand as the sun rises and the void turns into bright bright lights, like a million angels compressed into a broom closet, their bones broken but their feathers smothering every inch of space flesh could not.
except that angels aren't pristine pale girls with thin limbs and little 'o' mouths and curved feet and miles worth of feathers extending from a straight held back.
they're terrifying.
the void's bright lights forced into rings of infinity, eyes overlooking every emotion that any living being will ever feel, flames and ice and soft and hard and floating and below.
imagination is a tricky bastard, but the reality it can hold is even worse.
and when reality is truly an unknown speck of energy in an expanding universe, the fear doubles and doubles and doubles until we learn to cancel them out.
real life.
real life that surrounds this room.
but never penetrates it.