A moment of grace is a dangerous thing.

So I was walking home last night, singing Home of the Heroes and crying about Jesse, and this group of girls strolls around me and one goes, "I ain't gonna steal your purse, white lady!" And I said, "what do you need, five dollars? How bout we go for a drink?" And her friends were grabbing her saying come on come on, and I was like, really, let's go to the bar and get a drink." Looking her in the eyes so she could see that I wasn't joking, or angry at her. Letting her see into me if she dared.

I was crying because Jesse is gone forever, trying to hold my tears back so I could talk, and she's younger than he would be now, and she was just kidding around using me, a total stranger white lady on the street to make her friends laugh and didn't realize I ...was bleeding my heart out on a public street at 11 at night. Jesse. She and I would have probably had a nice chat, but her friends (understandably) did not want to cross that bridge from wherever they were to the bleeding hell behind my eyes.

She was looking then, you could see the micro expression (what you look like when you realize you just stepped in way over your head but this is a New York street and you get your poker face back fast as you can) and I could feel the tears streaming down my face again, and I know she saw them and realized that I wasn't afraid, I was just dying inside. Poor thing. I wonder if she'd ever seen that before in her life. Living death. I wonder.

And then she was my own daughter. I couldn't tell her that. I would have done anything for her.