Where were you when I prayed, hands clasped like a venus flytrap waiting to eat up any answer you spat out of your rose-red whale-bone-lined mouth, while gravity counted out my rosary bead tears in a slow pitter patter pitter patter against cold concrete creeping up my knees and sandpapering my skin.
Where were you when I looked in the mirror and saw two eyes, a nose, and a mouth I didn't recognize and I was scared scared scared to move so I stared at the trembling lips twisting around themselves trying to force out a word, a laugh, a scream; anything to break the sound barrier silence that engulfed everything in a sonic boom. But you never came so I stood there until my ribcage dropped down around my knees and my hair fell around the floor like a magic salt circle protecting me from the windows where they would crawl through and get me, fingernails scraping and clicking on the woodwork.

I count my electrolyte rosary every night, scraping the skin off my forehead hoping and praying some day you drop me an answer because I'm starving and even the dogs get to eat the table scraps from the master's hand.