My heart jumps into my throat choking me as my pieces fight for orientation. A gravitational pull at war with up and down. My body taking turns being dizzy then nauseous followed by a vibrational numb like the touch of a nine volt, on a nonrhythmic rotation while I vainly try to grab onto any nearby reality like a sinking life boat, but I'm jerked into what I can only assume is down in a frantic, one over one . I try to fight against it, flaying around like a feline in suspension, clutching for any sense of control. It doesn't matter in this endless space devoid of any whims of my own.

I still claw and struggle against the force that pulls me as if it's malleable. Soon it is. Its viscosity thickening with each rising in blood pressure. water, syrup, slime smoothers me gently like simmering water with the threat of boiling around the corner. Wherever this pull takes me I don't want to go even knowing who's on the other end. Forgive me. I'll see you in another lifetime. I'll make it worth your wild and bind our threads in cement.

My colander of promises falls on deaf ears. I'm pulled through, or do I fall through a puddle of water. drenched, coughing up mystery liquid like a frenzied rat. I'm shaking and taking deep labored breaths as I look around my new environment wide-eyed. There is no puddle large enough for a body, but liquid is clearly dripping off of me. Thick dated vinyl flooring, many windows, old desk growing through the patches of weeds, a female body pierced with a jagged stool, a broken noose, and the back of a larger person in the furthest corner. A person I know too well, but I want to knot the rope, draw as much slack as I can. There is an uncontrollable fear at the ends of my being.

The *ting of a kicked aluminum can.

The *thump* of a hand hitting a plastic barrel.

No! I shuffle away on my elbows and knees, snot catching on my hands. Hearing came to me to like a car crash; my ears ringing then everything too much, all at once. Rain born bouncing and wailing off the air between my brain and skull. The tears and mumblings of the cornered man. Glass breaking away from the window. A storm in a distance followed by angry sirens frantically searching for their tenant. Labored breathing on its last wheeze. A foreign woman's painful screams I believe is my own. It prompts the man to meet my eyes revealing the body of another, a man laid out in front of him disheveled goodbyes. The Shadow man eyes wide with disbelief. He lands a loud slap to his face, then a wild crazed grin of perfectly polished teeth. He mumbles something I can't make out that feels like claws along my spine. An unnatural, indescribable, fatherless fear boils into me, a fire that has always been burning, but I didn't have the senses to recognize it. I shuffle away keeping my eyes on the man whose features are slowly becoming recognizable as he crawls to me like a demons spawn first steps on ice: Square jaw, deep cupids bow, closing holes from an old piercing under his thick lips and the moon casting a stroke of light across his bronzed eyes and copper skin. His appearance blinding and striking, I may have mistaken the one to escort their souls for something to fear, but it was involuntary.

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"You," his voice shaking with a bag of cloudy emotions. My foot hit the wall. I sit up like a weasel as if there is any more further away. "You believe me?" He begged taking up my hand. The muffled *Thunk* of a kick drum with tears -- a connection made. "Please...Please I didn't do anything wrong." I closed my eyes to his pleas and childlike cries. " I-I loved them." He whispered like I was his last confession. like I was his escort weighing his heart on a scale. This is not the ending I wanted. I shake my head forcing his words to linger in queue with no sender.

The circulating screeches of the hunting sirens approach to halt a few feet away. I feel his tense body jerk away from me slightly in the direction of the female body and sorrow lay a gentle hand as he motions from where he crawled from. His end is near. I wish he would go in peace away from me.

"Master O'dalaya," the gentle static voice of a woman who could have impersonated a kindergarten teacher address the building. "If you do not come out in the count of 20. You will be sentenced to death."

His hand quiver and his six-foot three hunk of flesh reflected a meager shadow as he took a deep breath to resign himself to his fate. "You." He took my face into his soft unworked hands. "I only need you to believe me." His thumb caress my cheek like a precious gem. If I answer him any shape or form is that the end for me?

"Fifteen, Master O'dalaya." The outside voice reminded us of our limited time together. The man slide his hand from around my face to the nape of my neck as if I could slip through his fingers if he lost a moment of contact. He twirled my hair into one his hands and applied light force so I fall into his shoulder. "Please, give me my final reassurance. Tell me,” He squeezes me like a security blanket.

I refuse to open my eyes or acknowledge any of his words because I know even if I want to take all of me and melt away, I would give him anything, any part he needs when our eyes meet in sincerity. I stay as still as I can maybe he will relent me to nothing but a hallucination.

"Eight, O'dalaya." The voice progressively became less respectful, and he begged one more time, but my silence was final. I feel him reluctantly let me go. I hear the light taps of his shoes as he walks away and the deciding last step. I open my eyes. He's standing in the middle of the space, eyes down, tears rolling, and hands folded.

I went to scream out my regrets, but an invisible hand held me in place, silent to sit in my final response. The scene in front of me faded like end credits.

They wanted what I always wanted - A connection. Someone to know I am here and here is my truth. Someone to tell me I deserve to exist, and I do. I am not that person for them. If I was that person and listened to his heart before it came to a close, I could have noticed the blooded jagged rod not far from the female body. I could have noticed the puddles that mapped from the male body to me. I could have noticed the man whose privilege did not afford him protection who I will only ever know as O'dalaya a representative of a whole and never a first name singular's ripped clothes and scabs where his cornrow had been ripped from his scape. I could have told him what he needed to hear, and this could have been the end to a very long journey, but I wanted to close my eyes and plug my ears.

I am stuck, trapped and made an unwilling seer of the different lives of men and boys and a woman as the world change around me. Some scream and yell, asking me question I do not understand. Others try to free me from an invisible chain. Many are grateful for a companion even though I can offer nothing but my presence. So many lives have me, but can hold me while I cannot hold myself until -

"There you are."