Nothing Left

When all of the injustice
gets to be so big,
the one thing
I know I can do
is listen.

When all of the pain
starts to cut so deep,
the one thing
I know I can do
is speak truth
about the things
that are hard.

When all of the truth
starts to come into light,
I don’t know yet,
if anything,
will be left.

Notes from the interview that inspired this poem:

She had been spending a lot of nights laying awake thinking about all the things that had gone wrong this year. “I don’t even have a short fuse anymore…I don’t have any fuse! There’s just nothing left. The stress and uncertainty are constant. I can’t get away from it,” she began. The pandemic was taking a toll on her daughter’s school and mental health. The social unrest had brought her own privilege to the forefront in a way that was more concrete and real than ever before. She believed now was the time to uplift Black Lives Matter, and she was working hard to simultaneously serve as an ally to the LGBTQ+ community, who had their own unique needs at this time. All of this was happening in the backdrop of realizing her marriage was over. She hadn’t yet told her husband and some of her family. Her mother-in-law had recently passed away. Her mother had been diagnosed with lung cancer last year and was living with tremendous fear every day now. “I really don’t have any fuse left,” she said.

Interviewee: Anonymous, Staff
Listener Poet: Jenny Hegland