You catch yourself wanting to say,
to ask, to cry out for help, for attention
or for effect. Even if only to see
if anybody is listening. Yet you don’t.
Anger ignites, anxiety rages, and the
consequences of a handful of
wholly conscious decisions scorch
the fragility of the present. It matters
not what tinder was sacrificed
to the flame, for now it is ash. Now
useless. Consumed. There is nothing
else left. You know, deep down,
what matters is what you ask, or say,
to the one person who has always
been there. See yourself. Be yourself.

j.g.l.