I-5 Prayer

Crocodiles, though gifted with over 70 teeth, cannot chew their food, only tear chunks off and devour it whole. In order to digest, they swallow small stones to grind up the food in their stomachs. In my 18 to 20 something days, I did the same, consuming self-hatred and oat bran muffins in gulps, swallowing stones of guilt later to grind them down.

When I tap into this past as a conduit for possible change for the future, all the self-inflicted scars and undoings are put into action. If I can stop one young woman or man from sliding, cold-blooded, into the wetlands of their own despair, every early morning scream over the rain-drenched Seattle interstate was given wing and turned into prayer.