Take a Break & Cry

“You gotta take a break. You gotta cry.”

“It’s not an option.”

I mean... The lists and calls and people and things will be there tomorrow.

But let my guard down?

Miss the threshold? THE phone call?

Being me is being held together by a thread.

A strong ass thread, but a thread, nonetheless.

Every phone call, every errand, and every impression.

It’s that deep.

No option for an off day.

‘Gotta be polite just in case…’

Even when they’re not because…

‘Just in case’ may mean they hold the “approved” stamp.

They calculate that cost.

They set that deadline.

No off days when your smile, your looks, your walk doesn’t only represent you.

It’s your child’s future.

Constantly in the balance.

Your shoes, hair, mood, last name, income, status - marriage, social.

All citations to a bibliography that could be the difference between “approved” and “denied”.

Positivity and persistence are the only option.

For me, the average.

For them, the world.

The bitterness, the anger, the hate, and the true grief slowly churns - I can physically feel it in my stomach.

Churning with no true outlet, except to motivate you for the next 1-800 phone call or the next time you open that letter addressed “Dept. of Social Services”.

They sit, the letters, until you’re angry enough, hateful enough that you’re ready to open it.

The churns feed the energy that your fingers need to open the envelope.

That your fingers need to dial that number.

Though I open the letters, make the phone calls, and make the lists of questions mostly out of love for my child, there’s something else.

They’re written and dialed and organized with the anger that I have for the system to treat my child like an afterthought.

An afterthought… I can’t believe it.

To have to convince them that my child deserves life… it’s disgusting.

Especially in a society that is telling us it’s “for the children”, “think about the children”.

I shouldn’t have to make notes, citations for all the reasons why my child deserves his basic needs met.

And yet, here we are.

A phone call on the automated list, finally come through after his assigned number and date of birth “could not be recognized” three times.

A robotic voice, supposedly human, on the other end, who’s heard it all, it can’t seem to reach the proof I have that MY child is human.

His humanity, his reality too far out of reach for anyone, even the one with the stamp.

I don’t share on the day to day, it’s exhausting.

Will it ever be known that the laugh, the joke, the smile, and any energy has come from miles and miles down into my soul - a requirement in order to participate in life?

“You gotta take care of yourself. You gotta cry.”

Ironic when this system doesn’t think my child deserves the same - fair, equitable, and accessible care.

Care.

My children will know nothing less, if anything much, much more, and for this, for now, I can’t take a break.