>> narrator: tonight, on this special edition of frontline... first- >> they put me in a cage. i was with around twelve oth younger minors. >> narrato the mass detention of migrant children. >> our children are being sheltered and cared for as we seek to find them a very safe home.ne >> narrator: frontnd the associated prenvestigate... >> when you detain children, you create risks for them for lifelong physical and emotional problems. >> narrator: the cost to "kids caught in the crackdown".

and later-- a secret sex trade in iraq... >> what's the difference betweed muta'ah marriage prostitution? >> narrator: working with an undercover reporter correspondent nawal al-maghafi investigates clerics exploiting women and girls. >> we're here to investigateon allegathat some clerics here are grooming women and even acting like pimps. >> narrator: these two stories tonight on frontline. >> frontline is made possiblby contributions to your pbs ank you.from viewers like you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major support is provided by the john d. and catherine t. marthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org. the ford fouation: working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. at fordfoundation.org.ti adal support is provided

by the abrams foundation, committed to excellence in journalism. the park foundation, awareness of critical .g public the john and helen glessner family trust. supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. and by the frtline journasm fund, with major support from jon and jo ann hagler. and additional support from koo and patricia yuen, through the yuen foundatio ♪ my >> durg the summerncle asked me if i wanted to go, like, learn the job that he was doing. my mom wanted me to go so that s can see how hard io work out in the sun. what they did was, like, just started a house from the bottom i always like working with my

hands or just, like, learning new things. ♪ then that day that we were heading back, i was on my phone. and, hector, he starts saying that, "nah, there... the cops are coming." (chatter on police radio) so, my uncle pulls over, and all he tells us is, "just relax, nothing's wrong." (chatter on police rad) the cop came, started asking for our papers, if we had any, identificatierything. >> police officer: >> yeah. >> he took me, out he made me talk to border patrol.tr >> border and martin: : >> border patr

martin: we were all handcuffed. and i started asking the cops, like, "what's happeng, what are they going to do to us?" and he just told us that we weren't suosed to be here, and because we were illegal, border patrol was going to come get usc tter on police radio) as soon as i was in the back of the car, i-i just felt like everything was over. ♪ >> daffodil altan: that night in june 2019 was the beginning of a long journey for martin. it would land him hundreds of miles from home. >> have you ever been to a stadium? it was like a adium but with cages inside, and that's where they kept all the people. and when we walked in there, we just saw people, it's like,

ying, we saw little kids crying. they put me in the cage. a i was wiund 12 other younger minors. i didn't really know what to thk, i was like, "is this prison, or, like, what is this?" i kind of broke down. i didn't know what to do. >> altan: he had ended up u in a massi. border patrol holding pen in mcallen, texas. >> a bleak picture of conditions for migrant children. >> we are seeing sick children, we are seeing dirty children, we are seeing hungry children... >> ...say there is not enoughwa foodr, or sanitation. >> altan: martin had spent most of his life in the u.s. but it didn't matter. like tens of thousands of kids who had recently crossed the border on their own, or had been separated from their parents, he agency, the departmentalthal and human services. rives at the u.s. border,hild they are taken into custody by u.s. customs and border, protectiose mission is to protect the security of the united states.

they're not set up to take care of anybody. they then turn that child over to the u.s. department of health and human services, which is an agency whose mission is to take care of people. ♪ >> altan: i've been reporting o on the livesundocumented people in america for the past decade. >> these kids are getting sent all around the country... >> altanwith the associated press, we've been investigating hhs's detention system fort migrildren. >> garance burke: we're going e end up with sort of lik a generation of migrant kids who are going to have this kindl ting trauma. >> altan: my partners theiv a.p., investigreporters garance burke and martha mendoza, have beenn this story for years. they obtained confidential hhs data showing where migrant children are being held and how many of them are in detention at any given time. >> burke: what we found in our reporting is that never before had there been this many children held inside the

government's network of shelters for migrant kids. the majority of those kids were in facilities with more than 100 or 1,000 other children, so mase facilities, psychiatrists say, kids start to feel like just another number. >> altan: hhs's own numbers now show that over the past year, nearly 70,000 migrant children have been held without their parents-- more than any other time on record-- andore than any other country in the world. ♪ one of hhs's largest facilities is an emergency influx shelter in homestead, florida. that's where martin ended up in june 2019. at the time, nearly one out of every five migrant kids in hhs custody was being held there. >> when we arrived there, you could just see there was a couple of guards, armeguards, by the entrance. once we went inside, we saw kids playing soccer., there was kids

was, like, "this was a thinking better place than where i was, in immigration." but this place is not really home, so i didn't really feel safe at the same time. >> altan: there were more than 2,000 teenagers being held at homestead. >> with very high numbers of children coming across the border atimes, hhs has to be able to meet its responsibility, bothegally and morally, to have a place for these children to go. an,i would say that, you kn even one of our influx shelters is better than a cbp processing center. >> altan: jonathan hayes is the director of the office ofe refusettlement, which is legally required to care for migrant children within s. he sat down with the a.p.'s garance rke. >> burke: so, why would your agency hold so my children together, both in influxry shelters and just arge shelters? >> there were some perio whereer wereceiving 400 to 500 kids every day. you know, you-you may lo at a,

at a shelter with 500 kids, and realize, "i could fill up one ofhose in one day, potentially." >> altan: hhs would not allow us to bring cameras inside homestead, despite repeated requests. but over the past year, we've spoken to numerous kids who've been detained-- incling this girl, who says spent a month and a half inside homestead waiting er be reunited with her fa she asked us to disguise her voice out of conces for her immigration status. >> girl (speaking spanish): >> altan: she says most of the day was spent in classrooms, with only one hour of outdoor time.

>> altan: the mass detention of children at homestead and othern hhs sites stemart from a little-known decision by the trumadministration. in 2018 hhs started doing extensive background checks on the children's sponsors, mostly relatives trying to claim themfr detention. >> mendoza: they began vetting sponsors and families to the extreme. anybody in a house where these kids were going to go to would have to be fingerprinted, background checked, and fully screenedwhich took a long time. >> altan: while the extreme vetting was in effect, the time kids werspending in hhs shelters went from a few weeks to mons. >> some of the additional changes that did come to be, i think did have an impact on

kind of slowing down the, you know, the process in that. but, you kw, it's always a balance between, you know, the safety othe children, but also being able to discharge them as quickly but as safely as possible. ♪ >> altan: in florida this past summer, we met a woman who had been trying to get her nephew out of homestead. >> xiomara (speaking spanish): >> altan: xiomara says her 16-year-old nephew jarin leftan honduras because were trying to recruit him. >> altan: though she herlf is undocumented, xiomara says she gave hhs everything they askedfo but jarin had been in

detention for almost four months. ♪ >> altan: >> xiomara: >> altan: along with the extremw vettinfound there was another factor pushing up the number of kids in detention:

hhs was sharing information with ice about sponsors coming to claim their children. >> what it was meant to do was to cast a larger netfter those that could be particularly .targeted for apprehensio >> altan: andrew lorenzen strait was a deputy aistant director of ice at the time. in may 2018 he helped write the agreement between the two agencies. >> i thought we were going to be looking at how wcare for kidse that may have thsues of being taken advantage of; trafficked, smuggled. >> altan: instead, ice usedrm the infoion to apprehend sponsors. in the months following thet, agreemenhe ancy says around 330 people were arrested. >> there is a total chilling o effef coming forward,ey because th believe they are the ouomes of at pershiprece. we devastating to the migrant community.

>> burke: in some of the government paperwork i've seen, there are fewer spsors coming forward now, and that that's led to more children being in custody. >> i have absolutely heard someo anecdotaersations and comments, you know, that there, you know, there was some examples of sponsors that were concerned.ho ver, i-i really reject, you know, the-the very prese that there's thisery widespread pattern. >> altan: ice says it's not arresting people in this way anymore. but the fear remains.as at her home in texmartin's mother was worried about being son.sted as she searched for her >> woman:

>> altan: martin was born in mexico and brought to the u.s. when he was nine months old. >> woman:

>> altan: but even undocumented kids like him, who've en here most of their lives, have been detained. >> woman: >> altan: as more children were being held, and for longer times, we began hearing from human rights advocates and mental health experts who'de been insmestead. >> never have i ever been to a cility that has 2,000-pl children in one place. it's a, it's a deeply unnatural state. we've been monitoring facilities all over the... >> altan: neha desai is part of a group of attorneys whomo tor the conditions for migrant children inside detention facilities. >> that are deteriorating... >> what we know from decades and decas of research is the way we should treat these kids isg,n the most homelike sett

in the least restrictive settine poss children at homestead are monitored 24-seven by security guards. children tell me that they can't walk five feet to go to the bathroom by themselves. these children are not free to altan: psychologist yenys castillo was broughtnto homestead to assess the impact of detention. >> all of the children in homestead said, "we are prisoners; we're detained; we cannot leave." it was a very regimented place. children were walking, and there was this one child, and he was crying. so, i asked the children, "how come i saw a child crying, and nobody was addressing that child?" ey and aid that they were not allowed to talk to one another most of the time, and then chthey're not allowed to tne another, and they're not allowed to offer comfort. so, we tend to see teenagers as mini-adults. they're not adults.

they cannot regulate their own emotns. o they don't thinkthe future as we do. they think, "this is going to last fever." the longer they stay in these detention conditions, the more they deteriorate >> girl: >> altan: >> girl: >> altan and girl: >>irl: >> the security around any of our shelters is more to keep

people out than to keep peop in. older children, you know, these aren't secure facilities that are impossible to get out of. the overwhelming majority, the near-unanimous number of children in our care, are grateful. >> altan: therare now approximately 170 hhs shelter programs for migrant kids across the country, from small foster-care sites to places like homestead. hhs houses the youngest migrants, infants and toddlers,a handful of facilities they call "nder-age" shelters. we were recently given rare access to this shelter holding babies and teenage mothers in san benito, texas. >> this is our busy hallwa there's constantly children playing, nsing, eating. >> altan: melissa aguilar is the director of shelter programs for comprehensive health services, a private company that runs the shelter. 1 >> we focus on zer7. so, we have mothers in care. we have the capacity to service

pregnant teenagers, and th can also care for their babies here. and she said it best, thatday, "the children are borrowed." they're borrowed for-for oure, purpight? so, a lot of times, when something is borrowed, you take care of them better than you i own.d something thyour >> altan: the company runs five other shelters, including homestead. and among its leadership is former white house chief of staff john kelly, who'd backed the policy of separating kids from their families at the border. over the past year, the government has paid chs nearly $300 million. by its very definition, when you're for-profit, your job as a company is to make a prot. so, some people might say, then, isn't there then an incente to detain kids? >> there is a profit, there is a price incentive, but it's not a detention incentive. the-the question about is there incentive to detain children-- absolutely not. and i think that it's so important for everybody to understand that 're not

detaining children. we're not separating children. we're caring for children. >> burke: morally, ethically, is it okay for a for-profit company to make money from holding children in mass facilities that they cannot leave? >> they're not the ones there, they don't realere coming as much say over who stays there. we can move kids in an out if ws soe. am i personally opposed to, you know, a for-ofit company? i've thought about that question, d honestly, i'm not. and at the end of the day, when you get down at the shelter level, you kw, you're basically talking about just a bunch of social workers, child-welfare experts, who just want to help care for the kids. >> we know from the american academy of pediatrics that there'no amount of time that it's safe for children to be we know definitively t detention harms children. that every single day that children are there, those impacts compound. >> altan: recently, hhs's internal investigator lookedin

the issue. >> mendoza: they tooa look at thshelter system and concluded in their own report that the mental-health needs of these kids was not being met. some kids were getting stressed out to the extreme, inflicting self-harm, becoming extremely withdrawn and deprsed. >> altan: beyond the mental-health impacts, there have also been documented cases of physical and sexual abuse at some hhshelters-- and the a.p. reported that children tand families are now sui u.s. for hundreds of millions of dollars. ♪ as for martin, after almost three weeks in detention, he found out he would finally be going home. >> on a saturday night, i was going to sleep, and they woke me up, like, around 10:00, 100. and they're like, "you're getting to leave." >> woman: w

>> when i em, i just, like, ran to her and got to hug her. t i just stared m, didn't know what to do. before i didn't really, like, miss my mom, 'cause i got to see her every day. i didn't feel like there would be that empty space where you actually need that hug from your mom. the first two weeks, i-i didn't really get to sleep. i was still, like, confused about what was happeni. i wasn't really stable.

i'm still scared that somethingo bad d happen. like, i don't feel safe anymore. ♪ >> xiomara: >> altan: after nearly four months, xiomara was finally recognized as jarin's aunt by hhs. >>arin: >> xiomara:

>> xiomara: >> woman (on phone): ♪ >> xiomara: n(people speaking spanish background) >> jarin:

(applause) >> your conscious mind may not remember, but your bodys. rememb your brain remembers. and maybe that child, at that moment, says, "i'm okay." but later on he might be in aat sin that is scary, and then he might freeze. and he doesn't know why. ♪ >> altan: we visited martin two months after he came home. h he a family asked to see the footage of the moment when he was first detained. >> (on recording): listen, i'm xas. check-and-sp here in i got six subjects, one of them's g a new york state... >> altan: were you surprised when they got the border patrol on the phone? >> yes. i just didn't know, like, what to say or how to react. (police chatter on recording) >> altan:ok >> no, it'. >> altan: okay. ta >> it's just... co thing i wish, like, it never happened>

ltan: mm-hmm. ♪ (policchatter on rio) ♪ >> narrator: coming up next pe thisal edition of frontline... it's called pleasure or temporary marriage-- >> in the community they lo at it as prostitution. >> narrator: and some iraqi clics are using it to exploit women and girls. >> we see women over and over again who were victims of the these abusers. >> narrator: correspondent nawal al-maghafi exposes "iraq'secret sex trade".

♪ >> nawal al-maghafi: i'm in kadhimiya, central baghdad-- one of shia islam's most important pilgrimage sites. millions visit this holy shrine, and many coues come here to get married. just walking around the shopping arcade across from the main rine, i've come across multiple marriage offices. we've come here because of irincreasing concerns amoni shias that some clerics are abusing an ancient marriage practice to exploit women and girls.

it's called "muta'ah" or "munqata"-- pleasure or temporary marriage-- and itfo allows a man to paa short-term wife. i have to be discreet filming this, but we're re to investigate allegations that some of the clerics here aremi groo women, and even actingps like pim ♪ there are no reliable statistics about how often this custom is actually used today. it's illegal under iraqi law. but some clerics say there are occasions when it's appropriate. this is cleric faris al-mousawi. he runs a marriage office in sadr city, another shia area of badad. what are the rules behind muta'ah marriage? >> al-mousawi: ha

>> mag: he says he doesn't conduct muta'ah marriages himself, because they're illegal. but he tells me that sometimes they're permitted under religious sharia law, and they enable a man to help a n won d. t >> maghafi: but what difference between muta'ah marriage and prostitution?

>> maghafi: 15 years of war have had devastating effect on iraq's women and girls ♪ it's been estimated that there are re than a million widows 00in iraq, and more than 800 children who've lost parents. ♪ this 16-year-old girl asked to be callerusul. for her safety, an actor is voicing her words. >> rusul (dramatized): >> maghafi: she says her father died when she was 12, and her family was left destitute. by the time she was 13, she wasr already d and divorced. then a man offered her a pleasure marriage.

>> rusul (dramatized): >> maghafi: rusul says a cleric from kadhimiya did t ceremony, and that she didn't understand what she was getting into. after two months, the man left her. >> rusul (dramatized): (sighs)

♪ >>aghafi: over more than a year of reporting, our team spoke to around 25 women and rl who said pleasure marriages had been used to exploit them.ed all feeprisals if they showed their faces. iraqi lawyers, journalists, andr human-rights wrs told us that abuse of the practice was a significant and growing problem, but warned us it would be difcult to expose. (rustling) to find out w widespread it is, we had one of our colleagues go undercover in kadhimiya. (car horn honks) if discovered, he risked being detained by one of iraq's feared shia militias. we're concealing his identity. r >> when i arrived, ieally

scared. first checkpoint was really scary, because i had a secret camera. they found this, no way i can run away. go through years of religiousib education, it's in iraq to become a cleric and open a marriage office with very little formal training. posi as a potential client, our reporter met witten clerics here, telling them he wanted a pleasure marriage with a 13-year-old. eight of those clerics agreed to conduct such a marriage if he had the parents' consent. one of them was sayyid raa >> saam alaikum. (raad speaking arabic)ou >> maghafi: r reporter met him outside the main shrine and went with him to his nearby office he saw his license to conduct marriages issued by the iraqi ministry of justice. raad said he had two offices in kadhimiya and employed four

other cler his title, "sayyid," means he claims descent from the propheta mmad. raad and reporter: >> maghafi: he agreed to do a pleasure marriage our reporter brought a girl to him. ♪ >> reporter: un >> maghafi: our dercover upscale mall.him again in an he told him he'd now found aol 13girl and had her family's permission. >> raad: >> reporter: >> raad: >> maghafi: sayyid raad was

willing to proceed without even speaking to the girl's family. >> reporter: >> raad: >> reporter and raad: >> maghafi: sayyid raad said ama man could do a pleasure marriages as he wanted. >> raa (muezzin calling adhan)te >> maghafi: our am spoke to two dozen men who said they did brief temporary marriages to get sex. e they told us the practic widespread. one of them aged to give an interview if we didn't show hisa ce. >> man:

♪ >> maghafi: the man said hey regulaes muta'ah marriages with women in their 20s, butrd he's hhat some men want younger girls. >> man: ♪ >> maghafi: our reporter had told sayyid raad that the girl he wted a muta'ah marriage with was 13 years old and a virgin. >> reporter:

>> raad and reporter: >> raad: >> maghafi: what raad said next was alarming. >> raad: >> reporter: >> raad: >> reporter: >> rd: >> reporter: >> raad: ♪ >> maghafi: we went to the iraqi ministry of shia affairs to ask about what we found. they said they had no oversight over marriage offices indh iya and declined to give an interview. the ministry of justice, which issues licens to conduct marriages, also refused to talk to us. we approached more tha20 senior shia clerics. some condemned the abuse we

found, but none would go ondi camera tuss it. one former high-ranking cleric agreed to talk to us-- ghaith tamimi. >> amimi: >> maghafi: he's become ane outspoken critic of religious leadership in iraq. after receiving death threats, he's now living in exile in london. he says that most shia muslims would be horrified at muta'ah men to marry children. enable >> timi:

♪ >> maghafi: we'd been told that abusive mutah marriages were happening near the holiest site in shia islam. this is karbala, it's biggest shia pilgrimage site in the world.ns tef millions of pilgrims come here ery ar. ♪ i spoke to sheikh emad alassady, the head of the shrine's marriage office. so we've heard about pleure marriages, muta'ah marriages. do you do them here? >> alassady: >> maghafi: but he said they dol happen in secret-- and are allowable under sharia law.

don't you think these pleasure marriages exploit vulnerable girls? ♪ >> maghafi: in the streets around the shrine, our reporr asked four clerics if they would conduct a pleasure marriage. two said they would. one of them washeikh salawi. >> reporter and salawi: >> maghafi: sheikh salawi said he had cpleted extenve religious studies, and also said that he was a member of one of iraq's powerful and well-armed ia militias. young girl who was stihe'd met a virgin. >> reporter:

>> salaw >> reporter and salawi: >> reporter: >> salawi:

>> maghafi: we showed this foote to yanar mohammed. she runs a network of shelters across iraq that help victims of sexual abuse and muta'ah marriage. >> nine years old? they are just opening a shop for pedophiles, inviting them from all over the world. the cleric is trying to make it sound as legal and religiously ac,pted, but in the communi they look at it as prostitution. our slter, we see women over and over again who were the victims of these abusers. >> maghafi: we showed her footage of sayyid raad. our porter had asked him wha would happen if he took a girl's virginity during a pleasure marria. >> reporter: >> raad:

>> reporter: >> raad and reporter: >> raad: >> they are speaking of how a man can get away with his crime of raping a young girl. ♪ >> maghafi: i met a young womanl who asked to be mona. she says she lost her virginityp inasure marriage. for her safety, an actor is speaking her words. >> mona (dramatized): sh

>> maghafisays the man took her to a cleric in kadhimiya for a pleasure marrge. she was only 14. her parentknew nothing about it. >> mona (dramatized): >> maghafi: so the sheikh knew you were a virgin. >> maghafi: mona had been groomed by a sexual predator with the help of a cleric. but now she's most afraid of her own family. >> mona (dramatized): ♪

♪ >> maghafi: sayyid raad had agreed to conduct a pleasureol marriage with a 13-yd. but would he actually go throu thhecleric now offered to do ceremony in a taxi-- over the phone-- for around $200. he didn't ask to meet the girl inerson or talk to her family. >> basically, another colleague of mine, she was in the hotel. h and whene ringhe phone, my female colleague, she was on another end of the phone, and she was ready to answer. >> raad: >> i'm not thinking this marriage wilbe that simple. the only question he ask of her, "what's your name?" and he start make the ceremony without any question. >> raad:

>> reporter 2 (on one): >> raad and reporter 2: >> raad: >> reporter 2:>> aad: (rc)orter 1 replies in arabi >> raad: n (talkingarabic) ♪ >> magha: rusul says that since her first pleasure marriage, she's been forced to work for the cleric who conducted it.

she wouldn't tell us his name, only that his office is in kadhimiya. >> rusul (dramatized): >> maghafi: she says she's beeno made tore than a dozen temporary marriages. m hafi: >> rusul (dramatized): >> maghafi: >> rusul (dramatiz): ♪

>> maghafi: we were now hearing from multiple sources that some clerics were using pleasure marriages to pimp women and girls. we wanted to find out if thes clerwe had secretly filmed were doing this. >> salawi n phone): >> reporter: >> salawi: >> reporter: >> salawi and reporter: >> salawi: >> reporter:

>> maghafi: he told r reporter he could off him a choice of women in their 20s and 30s. >> salawi: ♪ >> maghafi: back in kadhimiya, we put the same question to sayyid raad. would he provide a woman? >> reporter: >> raad: >> reporter:

>> maghafi: we wanted to put our allegations to the clerics we' filmed. but it was too dangerous to do it in person. i phoned sayyid raad from (phone ringing) >> (on phone): hello. >> maghafi: hello, salaam alaiku (raad speaking on phone) >> raad: raad: >> maghafi and raad: >> raad: (phone beeps)un >> maghafi: heup. ♪ we also rang sheikh sawi, but he didn't respond. we approached iraq's most nior shia cleric, grand ayatollah

al-sistani. he declined to be interviewed, but replied in a statement. "if these practices are happening in the way you are saying, then we condemn them unreservedly. temporary marria is not allowed as a tool to sell sex in a way that belittles the dignity d humanity of women." he said the abes we'd seen were happening "because the authorities were not enforcing the law." we approached the iraqi government on multiple occasions to ask them why they weren't cracking down on abusive pleasure marriages, but they declined to provide anyone for interview. a spokesman told "frontline," with their complaints the police clerics, it's difficult for the authorities to act." ♪ but fomany young women across h justice.ere's noope of

rusul is still working for the cleric she feels she has no choice. >> rusul (dratized): ♪ >> sama? (laughs) sama. i made this film for you. ♪ sama. need you to understand what we are fighting for. >> go to pbs.org/frontline for more reporting from our partners at the associated press.

>> they began vetting sponsors and families to the extreme. >> so why would your agency hold so many children together? >> and more on life in post-war aq for women and girls. >> in our shelter we see our women who were the a victims of theses.ct >> conne to the frontline twitter and watch anytime on pbs.org/frontline.or >> fronts made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major support is provided by the john d. and catherine t.co macarthur foundationitted to buiing a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at cfound.org. the ford foundation: working with visionaries on thei frontlines of change worldwe. at fordfoundation.org. additional support is provided by the abrams foundation,le committed to exce in journalism. the park foundation,

dedicated to heightening pubc awareness of critical issues. the john and helen glessner family trust. supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. ontline journalism fund, with major support from jon and jo ann hagler. mand additional support f koo and patricia yuen, through the yuen foundation. captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> for more on this and other "frontline" programs, visit our weite at pbs.org/frontline. ♪ frontline's,cr "kids caught in thkdown" and "iraq's secret sex trade" are available on me amazon pideo.

♪ u' ♪ watching pbs. ♪ ♪

how depressed i was.nobodyw and i was so lonely. i'd sit in that room when d,everybody would go to and i would cry. uh. just cry. and i remeooking at the blanket, and i reme like, there was that thing covering the window. but,ight above it i uld just see the stars, and i don't even know what it was. but i could see it all. i could see my future. i could feel it. i could feel like there was something out there, just wouldn't give up.

i dealt with a lot as a kid.