The Ledger Holds Its Breath

Under fluorescents—
aprons stiff with old heat—
we count backward,
finding the zeros that once held our shapes.

The ledger keeps breathing.
Overtime shaved thin to breath.
We take the books back.

Reverse the stroke—
ink climbing the page against its keeper,
numbers re-entering where dignity was crossed out,
old quill-time bleeding into barcodes, into screens.

Our tongues become tools.
Not prayers—implements.

We dig until the theft shows itself:
wages misfiled as obedience,
hours taught to look grateful,
a column where silence was entered
as consent.

The ink hesitates here—
blots with our breath,
thickens into what we spent.

Correction leaves a stain.

Aotearoa fernroot presses up through concrete—
not symbol but force:
what grows beneath systems
that learned to forget our weight.

Let hierarchies read the balance aloud.
Mercy, reclassified as debt.
Let them calculate the interest.

By shift’s end, the columns change.
History’s spine cracks at the margin.

The ledger holds its breath—
awaits our signature.

The mark cannot be cleared:
our thumbprints pressed into the total.