Dear Future Children,

I continue to hope and pray to the heavens, I beg them for their mercy. If I am blessed with you, I would die a hundred deaths to save you...pray to a thousand Gods, asking them to spare you from this crippling fear. If you grow and the fear begins to hold you, becomes your gravity, I promise to always hold your hand through the panic. I would never leave you to navigate alone...I know all too well, the consequences of the darkness and the vise grip hold of loneliness. I would do anything, even sell my soul, to prevent you from living and feeling the same as me.

i am asphalt

my skin crawls...withdrawal pains

itching. shivering. kicking.

agitation...void of emotion.

i feel, i am drying up inside out.

close to evaporation, thin air.

my knees are still bleeding,

long i prayed to be saved.

i've been stolen and strapped

in the saddle of soggy nights.

riding blind through the fog

the gray has overcome me.