Again and again it goes… that miniscule amount of hope I see leave her eyes. It’s a dimming of the light, the light that’s normally bright. My daughter, six and already a thin callous crusting her heart. Her hope, soiled by the promises her mother thoughtlessly made simply to distract so her broken mother could have a moment of rest. Again, this cycle launched. Two years have passed and the child has begun to do less, to ask for less, to expect more in only the most secret places of her heart. The weakest places, where hope learns to leave, not launch into those simple dreams of spending time with mom. Watching the passage of this time, unable only to live outside of the moment, allowing her daughter to steal away only the most banal and unmemorable of moments. Knowing that she’s living outside these moments, will always remember she couldn’t be present.