Her cheap heart hurt.

This kid has dark hair, brown eyes, peach skin, and quite a mouth on him. He pops up as Little Boy/Hyper/Bright/Guarded in my personal intuitive taxonomy. Anyway, these are words, he's a kid. Here's what stood out, honestly: he didn't like me. We did not hit it off. Mostly in this world I hit it off with people. I remember coming at him with the wrong tack and Brian having to do some mending. This kid liked Brian a lot, with the particular texture of a hyper boy who is guarded but not in the way he thinks he is. When a kid like that likes you it feels great but is exhausting.

He got out of kid jail last week and was walking to school with his mom to re-enroll. A 20-year rolled up on them, flashed some gang signs, and shot him in the head. This was on the southernmost street of our neighborhood. After years of rumored gentrification, it's been speeding up real quick and the Latin gangs that once ruled Logan Square--along with the now extinct white Gaylords--have been pushed to the south and west edges. Which is where he was shot. In the head. He's 14, he's alive and in a coma.

At Unicorn camp I had a particular experience of a little boy--all that energy radiating everywhere, knocking over breakable things and literally soul-puncturing with pure love. Some people are in so much danger, you know? We're all connected but some of us are way out from under the blanket, out there cold and vulnerable. It's heartbreaking. This is my own fault, too, all this heartbreak, I actually tattooed a prayer for heartbreak on my back. I had no idea. I suspect that if I'm surprised now I'm gonna be hella shocked later, like if I have kids, like if I fall in love, like if I stay sober for as long as I need to--forever--and keep having the truth of this broken world shoved into my big dumb heart.

The girl that got locked into the room for six hours? She was on the news, too, she's missing. My brain gets it--I've been shown enough of the map to see where we are located on the X and Y of desirable attributes, Maslow-wise, I think I've got a picture of what my own compassion consists of, but feelings-wise, right now I just ache for us.