Within the vortex

I really don’t know how it all started. But I feel like I’m in the center of a tornado and everything in my life is caught in the vortex, swirling faster and faster in the biting black wind around me. People are flying around me, my friends and loved ones, all of them screaming, wanting to be pulled to safety. But I am left chained. My wrists are shackled within the heavy iron chains that are buried beneath me. At my feet is my own foundation, crumbling. As the speed of the deafening tornado picks up and my hair whips around my face, the concrete splinters, cracking through the earth and turning into rubble. Bits of broken stone fly upward and slice into my flesh where I’m most vulnerable. I’m barely holding my own.

More than anything, I want everyone to fall safely to earth. I want the tornado to pass without any damage left behind. But in the midst of all this chaos, I know there will be casualties. What I don’t know is if I’m strong enough to survive the aftermath.