I Wish

The rain beats down, slapping against the windowpanes.
Cars drive by splashing mud up on the sidewalks, with neither cause nor concern of me walking by.
Tattered coat, hair plastered to my head, dripping water underneath my coat neckline.
My heart feeling heavy with despair, shame, and struggling pride, with a desperate need to survive.
I just closed and locked the door of what was my own.
Closed the door to the happiness, warmth, and love that I had ever known.
Slips of paper taped to my door, saying I must pay; I looked at the holes in my pockets and drooped my head some more. Beating the concrete until my feet are sore, trying to think of anything else but the growing hunger rumblings inside my stomach. Passing by places that were once lit with lights and full of people, now windows are dark or covered with boards.

I go pleading to the state asking, begging for help to save my home, with tears in my eyes.
And the state asks, “Are you disabled?”
“No.” I replied and shook my head.
“Do you have any children?” the state asks me, trying to seek a way to help me.
“No.” I replied again, and my head hung even lower with despair.
“I’m sorry but we cannot help you.” the state replied.
“You can’t help someone who needs a job, who would rather work than beg you for help? Especially when there is no work to be found?”
The state replied, “I’m sorry, but we just can’t.”
“We don’t have much money either you see.”
I looked at the state, the growing despair of proud people gathering in the building seeking help, proud people who worked good jobs, hard workers. None of us deserved this. And I said, “I wish…”
I wish for the days when jobs were plentiful, when laughter rang throughout the air.
Before the towers fell, before the wars began.

I turned and looked at my home, and sadly said, “I wish I could keep you my friend.”
And locked the door like so many along with me already had. And walked through the rain, and mud, while cars drove by, windshield wipers slapping a tempo echoing inside my head. I then looked up at the sky full of water, and gray, heavy clouds. Up to the Heavens where I know that God must reside.
And I said out loud, “I wish.”
And walked through the pouring rain with my head a little higher toward my unknown destiny.

Copyright © May18, 2006 Cherianne Renee Burmeister

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