The light is but a white pinprick in the sky; the sky itself an indefinite realm of darkness. I have fallen into the chasm again, with the strongest beam of light just beyond my reach. Sometimes I try with all the power I can physically sustain to sweep it with my hand, to free at least one part of me from the unpromising depths of where I've been tricked into believing I belong. In other long moments, I fall back against the chasm walls, my head buried in my arms, the darkness I know so well relishing every molecule of every teardrop I've shed thus far. My feet grow tired from always springing toward that pinprick of hope that remains miles above me. I can see it; I know of its presence, yet its unattainability mocks me to my grief-stricken core.

   Is my only option to wait until I grow taller to caress the sunlight in its entirety? To inscribe my crippled words on the cold walls until it happens? To be constantly reminded of my pain by joyous shouts from above ringing through my eardrums?

   Occasionally, someone on the surface peers down at me. I cower in horror as their shadow falls over my entity and yell for them to be wary of joining me at the bottom. They in turn insist I will be okay but the evil force tells me otherwise. I curse the day it pulls a loved one down; not a soul would I wish this upon, friend nor foe alike.

   So until time permits a steady climb in altitude and peace, I lie below in the capricious darkness the chasm is always home to. I'll be counting each breath that is brave enough to cross paths with the suffocating frigidity.

   I'll be here.

   But it is not my home.