Way too often I find the child within this overgrown shell. He hides in the crack in the slab.

                      Longingly he stares back at me with those deep blue eyes and smiles at me  -  as if he knows who I am inside.

                                     Who I really am.
                                             Who we really are.


                                                       I

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              It burns in my eyes.

He just stands there, looking at me. Then he reaches out his hand toward me.

                                         I awake alone.

- Shepherd, 1-12-20