I cough
And feel the sickness
Rise
And wonder
How many babies
Ache
From the same
Affliction
But are not
Treated
Because of their
Race
Or place
Of origin

You pour
Your heart
Out to me;
I pull
The courage
Out of you.
What a delicate
Vibrant
Vulnerable exchange

I’m a travelling salesman
between the 1A on 91.3
and songs that hurt
on my Pandora station
I go door to door
selling hope
The problem with
selling hope
is having some to
spare
a client once told me
“you can’t front a berry
and still make a berry”
I think she was
talking about ******
but the sentiment
stands.

Behold your public funds at work:
Trash-strewn gutters, loitering thugs;
Sidewalk dancers start to twerk
While tattooed clowns deal circus drugs.

Social workers check the pulse
In clouds of menace: sick-sweet smoke.
The cities brain and guts convulse:
Mad laughter for an absent joke.

Such Godless faces, Christless souls
Whose gazes show malign defeat
Evoke dysfunction. On it rolls:
A harsh, reptilian urban beat.

The ghosts of absent fathers fade
In methadone . . . the guttural yells
Infect the *****-reeking shade
Of demons bound in welfare hells.

America—reduced to this.
Fragmented, begging for repair.
A vicious and unkind abyss
Beyond all hope and all despair.

I want to flee such streets of noise
Where fate is read in scraps of trash
When sirens urge the circus boys
To pocket their illicit cash.

I'm not sure where to start
Not certain where's the end
I've got some observations
and some reservations....

Observation Number 1
Take care of yourself
Which seems complicated to do when all I can think about is...did that little girl sleep tonight, or did she stay up tortured by the images of her ******

Number 2
Competence is necessary
Of course I already knew this
But apparently in some it doesn't exist
Competence means knowledge it means understanding
Competence is knowing that this family didn't magically appear with issues
No, its been generations, cycles of people whose one commonality, other than DNA, is struggle
Struggle of addiction, struggle of poverty, struggle of depression, struggle to be happy
Competence means understanding that policies are also barriers to real change sometimes

Which leads me to observation Number 3
Policy
It's complicated, it's bureaucratic
It's sometimes diplomatic.
It's the reason we have registered *** offenders
But also the reason we had severe DFCS budget cuts
It's why my client can never seem to have enough money to provide for all 3 of her children

Reservations?
Am I cut out for this? Can I really evoke change?
Can I handle hearing about another 12 year old being abused?Can I really watch another child cry while they're separated from the mother that beat him unconscious?

Maybe it’s my passion to heal those who are broken
Maybe it's because for years I listened on the phone while someone I loved told me about what HE did to her over and over
Day after day
From age 10 until I'm not even sure when it ended
Maybe it's because I have my own story and troubles that I wish someone could've saved me from

But when I look in a child's eyes and see that longing for happiness
That longing for normalcy
I know this is where I belong

Here in social work
With the good, the bad, the ugly
The unknown
I can't let the fear of failure dominate me
I have too many lives to change

You told me something I hadn’t heard before
When you held me in your arms
and  whispered in my ear.
Something so different
to all the lies
From people who try to understand a feeling
That they know nothing about.
You said we’d get through this together
And promised tomorrow’s another day

I can’t hold on much longer
I think you can see it in my eyes
And the way my hands shake
I could be dying
And tomorrow seems so far away
My thoughts
are driving me insane
You tell me you’re so proud
Of the progress that I’ve made
You say I’m so strong,
But I’m not.

I may seem polished on the outside
But inside
I’m cracked like the bottles
When I drink.
If you could fix me
break me open
Pour out the poison
The stuff that’s making me ache
from every part
You could put me back together,
clean and pure.

Stitch my wounds with your love
I won’t cry if you’re my doctor
your voice will be my anaesthetic
Just kiss the incision
and tell me I’ll get better.

I’m accustomed to pain
to doubt
to shame
you don’t have to worry about hurting me