A Few Days
2007-05-30 - 10:49 p.m.

before/after
strangely non-functional guestbook

A FEW DAYS

For the first couple of days

you really feel good

working with the kids

counseling.

I remember a co-hire mentioning that

to me one day after work

the first week.

"You know, I used to sell cars,

and I'd go home feeling like shit.

But now...NOW...I go home feeling...GOOD.

Like I helped somebody."

Too bad that feeling could last.

Last past the restraints and the tears,

the fights,

the trips to the inner city ghetto,

to tell a mom how to raise her child,

her eyes pinballing in her head,

unable to make contact,

even though I was right there in the room,

because she was high on the heroin her son got caught selling.

It definitely couldnt last

past the phonecall from a drunk crackhead,

after he had lucked into my cellphone number

calling me on an otherwise benevolent sunday afternoon,

raging at me because he couldn't see his kid,

the kid he had obviously beaten and abused

terrorized

but there was nothing anyone could prove.

"How did you get my cell phone number?"

I impotently asked,

as he swelled, roared, and threatened me again

a small man, shriveled

with brown in the whites of his eyes,

and burnt teeth,

choosing this

of all days

to be the day that he tries to be a father.

No the feeling couldn't last,

past the soul sucking hours

the torn and tattered relationships

the strain on health and life,

the feeling of callousness

the macabre gallows-humor,

the awful numbness to it all.