Trauma is a hallway.
It's that place where you wait when there isn't enough space where you're trying to go.
It's the gauntlet you run, hourly, because it's also your only ticket to somewhere else.
It's where people are sent when they've been bad. It's where good people are sent when it is time for the hard, unpleasant, humiliating to take place.
It's a one way street, no U-turns allowed, leading to the last answer,
a conclusive result, a final destination.
I have walked down that hallway, before the dawn,
with her limp form still furry in my arms,
all options exhausted but one,
and me exhausted from trying them all.
I have left by that same hallway now carrying nothing but my anguish.
--Dan
