Illusion

We arrive on credit— already in debt to the bright, slapping air. The first breath invoiced, the first cry taxed by time. We pay to be born in rooms that sterilize hope, pay to keep the heart stuttering forward with water that remembers plastic bottles, with food that wears barcodes like dog tags. We labor to earn the right to labor again— a loop of coin and exhaustion, where even sleep is rented by the square foot of mattress, by the kilowatt of dream-light. Playtime arrives pre-packaged, priced per hour, per level, per skin stretched tight over microtransactions. Laughter has an entry fee now; silence carries a late-payment penalty. And when the body finally quits haggling— when it lies down in the only bargain it never signed— we still pay. Gravel for the plot, polished box, flowers that wilt faster than gratitude, a final invoice mailed to next of kin. Freedom? It was the name they gave the cage so we would stop rattling the bars and start decorating them. We are not free. We are exquisitely leased. Yet sometimes— between two expensive heartbeats— a gull screams over the interstate, raw and unbilled, and for half a second the ledger forgets our name. That half-second is the closest we ev