Story is marked as mature

I'm edging closer daily to despair

From which, I doubt I ever can escape.

I brood on all the times I wasn't there

When he was suffering cruelty and rape

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I'd never known, 'til later, how unfair

His lover's treatment was--how mean, how vicious.

My friend …

A hermit crab's a humble, helpless creature

That borrows others' armor as it grows

It's fragile, having no protective feature,

And makes an easy victim, as it knows.

-

And worse than that, this poor, vulnerable chap

At times, in moments desperate and scar…

My new apartment felt like it was part of my old neighborhood. The details differed, of course. A Mexi-mart instead of a 7-11 on the corner. Out front, Carson Street stretched out instead of Fallon Street. But sometimes new streets shared the same faces, …