Carried: Ulcerative Colitis (Lining-damaging inflammation of the large intestine) (I)

Vigilance runs at the level of detail, because detail is the only part of the situation that can be gripped: decisions stall, small things take on weight, and the checking becomes its own occupation. Underneath is conformity kept up by fear — of exclusion, of reprisal — with the resentment it generates pushed out of sight, since expressing it was never safe in a rigid household run from the top down. The large intestine is where what cannot be released does its damage. What the shape asks for is one grievance stated plainly, at ordinary volume.

Let one detail slip and the whole thing comes apart. And no, I'm not angry.

Isaac on the mountain, going quietly with a father who does not explain, asking one careful question about the arrangements. The form implies a task: to ask the second question, and the third.