They put a new PRICE... on standing STILL. THEN RUN (run) More for the SAME. Who pays the difference? Everybody. Keep pace. New-car smell, new screens, hardwood in the hall, a home full of better things I hardly see at all. Pay takes the STAIRS while the bills take the LIFT; I'm a genius if I balance it, a bastard if I slip. Prices down, supplies up, every margin wears thin; and the people on the payroll have their own lives to defend. Keep the roof overhead. Keep payroll paid on Friday. Another reason I get home after five. Call it service, call it leadership, put a halo on the strain; every corner cut buys minutes, then charges back in— YEARS. MORE for the SAME! MORE for the SAME! Keep the whole thing STANDING— keep it looking just the SAME! Who pays the difference? I told my girls this work would give us afternoons. First it was a week, then MONTHS, then another— year I heard their voices change around the word... soon. They're still making frozen princesses, cats that know a spell. They don't ask what the floor cost. They just look to see who's THERE. Five hours' sleep felt like a gift. My body wouldn't rest. I came home; all the little fires kept burning in my chest. Oh, don't make it SENTIMENTAL. They're fed and they're all SAFE! Name all the things you've lost; then name who'd take your place. You're the LOCK, the LADDER, the hand upon the rail; you don't get to call it freedom if the people underneath you FAIL. MORE for the SAME! MORE for the SA— They don't stay the same. Patch a crack, paint it black, stack a fix on a fix, call the borrowed hour progress till the interest sticks. Little friction, little shortcut, little 'just this once', now the years come due together and the easy work is gone. So you DIG, then you DIG, and the DIGGING'S all you DO, just to be the man they think you are, the man you thought was you. It's not WEALTH. It's not a JET. It's a TABLE and a FLOOR, and the awful art of KEEPING it requires a little MORE. More TIME. More HANDS. More RISK. More to DEFEND. You built a cage that OPENS— but you keep LIVING IN IT! There. Still standing. Who paid the difference? I kept us alive. I KNOW you did. They'll understand when they're older. That's what I'm afraid of. My father loved me. He wasn't there. I know those things can BOTH be true. I can keep the lights on. I can't keep them LITTLE. And FRIDAY? Who goes short if you GO? I don't know. That's the part that scares me. Then just tonight. Just ... TONIGHT. You said that last— YEAR (year) It wasn't a LIE! I KNOW. I thought we were buying time. So did I. MORE for the SAME! MORE for the— MORE for the SAME! MORE for the— They're still little.
