cubic meters

i spend a lot of my day trying not to take up too much space.
my bed is small, i wake up and am sleeping against the wall with the other end of the bed just inches away, and then the subway with its infernal mass of hipster glasses and hairdo clad army, taking the L train into the city, they blast their folk rock and look sullenly at the floor and the train is too crowded so i'm pressed up against the door trying to read my book as unobtrusively as possible. at work i have a small amount of floor space i'm allowed to be in, and sometimes not even that--in the morning tables are moved and the floor is swept and i'm somehow constantly in the way,the one tile i try to stand on gives way and keeps shrinking and there are patrons trying to get into the coat check and waiters going by and runners with their plates of food so i shrink smaller. and then i leave and get back on the subway and battle again, the platform crowded, not wanting to be noticed, erasing into anonymous oblivion. i go home and there are people in my apartment, watching television, cooking, taking a shower, playing music, talking on the phone, and so i battle for space for a few hours and then retreat to my bed and watch a movie, my computer weighing down on my lap, and i fall asleep sometimes without even noticing myself.
i saw an exhibit once. it was in the czech republic. there were 5 white boxes on the floor, about knee-height, a little bit more rectangular than a simple cube. they were different sized, but not by much. they represented the artist and his family, their volume determined and then condensed and put into block form. little boxes representing a person, sitting, taking up as little space as possible on the floor.