Disenfranchised

Getting through this day,

just like yesterday.

Your issues aren’t mine,

mine are more now-ish, more personal.

Your platitudes fall short of motivation,

I am moved by the things wrenching my gut.

Your look of confidence, I can’t afford it.

You can’t either, but you don’t know.

Three jobs, no job, no respect.

The pundits recommend RRSP, TFSA.

I recommend food, rent, a coffee, maybe a smoke,

laughing, talking in front of Timmy’s on Thames.

Sure your cause is significant,

sure I understand but,

my Kids, my wife,  

my partially severed social connections, 

baggage left over from childhood,

disrupts sympathy for you.

Then, of course, you judge,

my age, my clothes,

my colour, my gender,

my asymmetrical face.

It’s not your intent but....

I am a we, a big we,
you need to know.
Time changes things,

my issues will become ‘the issues’.

You think I am asleep?

Look closer.

Without Despair

I have been loved, and have loved for so long now I have forgotten loneliness, I have dismissed despair. The heart of a strong family, the task of caring have insulated me. Now though, despair so desperate has dropped in my lap, flowed over me like a cold shower. The despair is not mine or that of my clan, but that of a sister in the greater community. We interacted only for a short time, our lives only in step for a brief few minutes, but she and we will never be the same. The path has changed some amount I am not yet fully aware, I may never pin it down but it is changed.

All of us are born we travel through this great human wilderness and most find refuge from the cold of having no one, or believing we have no one. Most for a time in our lives get lost, left cold without love. Some stay cold too long and cannot get warm again. Some succumb to the cold. Will she get warm?

It’s too soon to know where my soul will go from here, it’s too soon to unpack this event fully. We are lucky, returned to our warmth, instantly back in the comfort of family, we never left it, but what about her? Did she feel any warmth in those moments? Will someone fill the void? I may never know.

I will wake up many mornings taking for granted my extraordinary life, that is human weakness. I hope though, she does wake to find some of the love that I will often consider ordinary. Will she be without despair?