After reading the response to this post and hearing from former and current BTs who are suffering, I wanted to do something. Instead, I took those stories and distilled them into this brief poem based on Sotah 2a:
These Hard Streets
©Shmarya Rosenberg
It is an icy wind
a tree just now barren
serves as a display rack
for a man selling
someone's life
I walk these hard streets
and I am empty
in heaven before I was born
it was said
a declaration
but He is very busy
and shit happens
so my notice got lost in the files
stuck between some pages
or maybe I missed it in a blare of horns
on 85th off Broadway
that night after the steakhouse
or maybe it's just late
damn late
So I ask Him
He doesn't answer
and in that silence
what?
and that's it, isn't it?
this is the answer
these hard streets
so empty and cold
like my bed
like my life
like my dreams.