Judgement

You are not ill. But you notice that something inside you has grown narrow. The jaw is under tension, the shoulders are pulled up, there is a quiet pressure in the belly — and if you listen honestly inward, you find a voice that sorts almost ceaselessly: that one is too loud. That one is too shallow. He is lazy. She is dishonest. He is wearing the wrong clothes. She is living the wrong life. Perhaps you do not say these sentences aloud. Perhaps you would never speak them. But they run. Quietly, uninterruptedly, like a till that never comes to rest.