It’s hard to speak, here, with the business looking over my shoulder. I have so much to say, but unlocking it is difficult. I need space. I need time. I have both, but they are stolen, like sips of whiskey from my parents cupboard. I need space and time of my own. I own so little these days, or is it just that I feel poor?

I’m tired of begging, tired of whining like an abused animal, tired of holding my tongue when I should be sticking it out at the world. I should be dancing on the graves of my expectations. I should be grinning wickedly, head thrown back to look at the stars, eyes sucking in stellar fire, illuminating my skull. I should be flirting shamelessly with chaos, telling fortunes, smelling of wood smoke and apples. My days are too mean. My nights are too quiet. Where is my wand?

Oh, the business, the business! Appropriating my magic and selling it as it’s own. The numbers are so sly. They lure me in with promises of stability. They lie with a facility that confounds and fascinates. I stare, unhinged, like the mouse at the snake. If I could fit in those tiny boxes, I’d have been lost long ago, but I am perhaps too round, too robust. No moving company can contain me. I will not be shifted like accumulated stuff, reconfigured, but still useless.

I have to let go. When I send the mental message to my fingers, they do not move. I shout at them. Let go! Let go! My hands are shackles, clinging to the rail, as cold and rigid as frozen meat. Do I have to cut them off? Is that where I am?

I fight with this paralysis physically, like I would fight with an enraged sibling. I can only struggle so hard lest I injure something I love. Peace, my dear. Please. Peace.

But all I get is the business.