"Put it down!" I screamed Silently. My despair ricocheting off her deaf drums like ripples bouncing back from the edges of the surface. A tear forms, but I grip it tightly and squeeze the moxie back inside where it can dwell in wrinkled abandon another night or two while I scavenge the wreckage for any salvageable debris to shift into my next masterful design at prolonging the inevitable disappointment only a real man can empathize with as the last shards of my fragile core are collected to reignite the beating #rhythm I now dance to in limbo aside from the prison hanging over my youthful vibrance ready to alert my defenses at first sign that love would no longer serve as the proper dose of contempt necessary for the status quo to shiftlessly slide open a passageway I once walked along with bare footprints marking my victory now just an endless cycles of contests I play against myself.