Throw back Thursdays when shadows ate my light. I still like it though even if some might find it sophomoric. Drowning in a man made ocean and the only thing extending this dance are two talons impaled into my back. This god-devil keeps me alive if only to prolong the sweet torment of living, the singe of despair that preserves me. Water penetrates my mouth, a strange, salty aquatic brew that reminds me of cum and pussy— better days, when surrender was easy, unmitigated, complete. There is no gestation on my tongue, only instant offspring which cry out, desperately hungry to believe in something greater than myself, their sire. “You done fucked that up too many times, boy,” whispers a gentle voice, softly but thundering with truth. No, I cannot comfort my children this time. But there are no answers, no heroin or heroines to save me. I am stripped, cold and alone, with all these hungry mouths to feed. Fight to live or fight to die and aren’t they the same in the end? Am I the family annihilator who drowns his guttural babies along with himself? Or does he win once again? I cannot die! I cannot die? I can’t die.