036 — The House That Breathes | Talon Z. Gray

---

The walls didn’t crumble, but every day the door grew smaller.
We woke to the suffocating squeeze of the nine-to-five,
to ladders never meant for climbing—
only so far,
and no farther.

They greased the steps with oil—
the gears of the industrial revolution spinning tight,
locking us in a loop, running endlessly but going nowhere.

Time itself screamed:
“Follow the guidelines.
Hit the milestones.
Become a product of the system.”

There is no past or future, only the relentless now.

Money is a collective illusion,
a tangled fiction of trust and broken rules.

How many selves must we carry—
from employer to family to friend—
each one a mask to tame the chaos,
a script written by an unseen director?

We look in the mirror,
telling ourselves stories to make sense of the mess,
crafting a method from memories,
searching for where we fit,
where we hold power.

But when you step back and see it all—
this tiny cog grinding in a vast, manipulated machine—
you realize the borders and boxes were never meant to hold us.

Underneath it all,
animals roam free,
unaware of the lines we draw.

Common sense?
A collection of inherited biases,
a cultural script written to keep us confined.

What if the shoes are too tight?
What if the shirt doesn’t fit?

We stoop, crawl, squeeze through fences not made for us—
and this system?
It suffocates us,
prisons our aching hearts.

I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.