The trash compacting truck comes to pick up garbage, Tuesdays. It's loud. I like to watch the gate compressing coffee cans, cardboard boxes, black bananas; loose fragments of the everyday crushed into manageable size and taken away. Real life's not so simple. I've tried condensing problems into smaller space, pushing down the thought that something's wrong, tuning out unwelcome words. It doesn't work because they thrive in harsh conditions.