Bound to wear out sometime, he said he was. Sometime is not yet, but coming, begun. I left today and the gate attendant was kind, kind to us all, shufflers with too many bags and too many tickets and too many too manys, more than dutifully kind which made it feel real, like he too knew too many too and thought it might be nice sometime to help. He gave me a good seat and told me so and as I passed him toward the jetway cattleway I thanked him again—thanks again, I appreciate it—and he looked me in the eye as he took my too many ticket and said certainly, my friend, anytime and that helped because we’re complete strangers and those things stick. My dad is a stranger to captivity and needs only to be helped out and that’s why I went. His body will get him, is, like I guess all of ours will do us. The hardest button, that, for him, that is. Hard for me to understand how I ended up with her, how that person such a person is my person who I’ll be staying free and helped and unstuck and alone with and it makes me want to thank him directly for his indirect part in that. I can’t tell if I come unbuttoned or if she buttons me up and I can tell I don’t need to and that sticks and I thank her. I need to tell it’s a damn shame I get paid to be held down, tell or I might wear out and start to forget what holds me does not captivate, is not real, but really wears out. Don’t tell me money changes that, I say, trying to be kind, mainly to myself because I hear that told and sometimes think a little part of it sticks and says be thankful. It’s not that I’m not. I rode the employee bus in south Philly and what would they say, strangers? It’s hard, a damn hard shame, all about life quality, though, and money helps, be thankful. What does everyone say. That’s how it is, that’s life, and it wears us out, a body at a time, be thankful. It’s in our bloodstreams like he’s in mine like the fight is and somehow she is too like the love is so I wonder how it flows, afraid something will hold me down and change that, the way I am, make me more foolish than I am in wearing myself out thinking maybe so sometimes in the first place.