stairwells raze the man and woman share a meal at a small white table, feet forced against their will to go steady on a slender step. she tells him he's wasting his life. he flings his food at her face. scrambled eggs and sausage. she ascends a long flight of stairs to end the interaction. he twists her ankle with little more than a thought. she turns and bounces back the way she came, a human basketball deflated by indifference. . . . . . . . . . the child is too old to be sitting in a stroller. when i fan my fingers around the handlebar, the folding chair on wheels advances of its own accord. i'm led to the crest of this steel-shielded hill. then to a theme park where disgraced former rock stars sleepwalk through songs they'd be happy never to hear again. a guitarist produces an onion ring from the mineshaft of his mouth, uneaten. a singer writhes around in a bumblebee suit. a drummer dreams of better times. none of them are happy here, but they lack the will to leave. . . . . . . . . . i follow my father down a stagnant escalator. aftermath of an undercooked argument. he marches into the morass of an unfinished basement. i ask him what he thinks i've done to wrong him. he says nothing. one leg wobbles but refuses to buckle. upstairs, hope steps out of an unlit bathroom wearing denim overalls and the face of a faded actress. she waits for her date to arrive. no knuckles knead the flesh of her front_door. years pass in this fashion. 250705 what's it to you? who go blather from