When one’s beautiful memories begin to drip with the blood of potential, and when one’s future is frightening and full of the torment that only unknown things can bring. And when these two inevitabilities, one’s past and one’s future, begin to collapse on a body unexpectedly; one throws his hands up hoping that he isn’t hit with something heavy enough to take him out. But one does not have faith because he has never learned faith. One does not have hope because he has never been taught hope. All one seems to have is his primitive instinct that enables him to try to save himself. He smiles through the suffering and checks in on other people all while he himself is being buried alive.

How do we master the art of fronting at such a young age when so few of us ever truly learn to love? We rarely learn how to give ourselves the attention that we require to grow. We don’t know how to appreciate what’s real yet we know how to be fake. And isn’t it a shame that so many of us die feeling unloved? So many of us are never taught how to be loved. We never learn how to be vulnerable enough to allow someone to carry us at least a part of the way.

This is the brief story of the long tragic demise of a man. An individual with a haunted past and a horrible future. This individual is currently being buried alive in pieces of the same structure that once protected him. His whole body is immersed in everything that he tried so hard to avoid. This individual is now totally out of options having realized that his death isn’t really his fault but he is the only one who is seconds away from dying—as far as he can see. He now begins to pray, but it’s too late. It’s far too late.

-Roger Porter