tonight..
Alone and exposed, she stands on the corner on this warm winter night. She defies her solitude with loud words and sobs, stabbing phrases wracked with hurt and anger while her tear-slicked cheeks glint under the streetlight.
I drop my head and try not to look, try to somehow blot her voice from my hearing. But I hear. “..she shoulda known... ..not my baby.. ...fuckin why’d she do that for?”. Words of persistence, a case being constructed, a list of injustices and hurts, directed as if to a supportive friend. Unheard words rising to an empty sky.
It strikes me what a precious sacrament it is to be heard, and it dawns on me that, though I don’t know her, i am the only person capable of giving this gift to my sister on the street tonight.
My soul wants to connect, tell her I can hear her pain and offer some comfort. “Do something, say something”, my insides urge. But I don’t know what to say, don’t want to intrude, don’t want to presume, don’t want to mess things up. So i fix my gaze on some distant object and pass by, as if oblivious of her pain.
And now, as I mull over the moment, I feel guilt, confusion, complicity in the silence of the night. There is something profoundly uncomfortable about the reality that I can let not knowing what to do be an excuse for doing nothing.
I drop my head and try not to look, try to somehow blot her voice from my hearing. But I hear. “..she shoulda known... ..not my baby.. ...fuckin why’d she do that for?”. Words of persistence, a case being constructed, a list of injustices and hurts, directed as if to a supportive friend. Unheard words rising to an empty sky.
It strikes me what a precious sacrament it is to be heard, and it dawns on me that, though I don’t know her, i am the only person capable of giving this gift to my sister on the street tonight.
My soul wants to connect, tell her I can hear her pain and offer some comfort. “Do something, say something”, my insides urge. But I don’t know what to say, don’t want to intrude, don’t want to presume, don’t want to mess things up. So i fix my gaze on some distant object and pass by, as if oblivious of her pain.
And now, as I mull over the moment, I feel guilt, confusion, complicity in the silence of the night. There is something profoundly uncomfortable about the reality that I can let not knowing what to do be an excuse for doing nothing.