Disclaimer: This story is about addicts. It does not mean to wrongly imply in any way that every homeless person is an addict.*
Someone’s daughter is holding a sign up at the light. I cannot look directly at her, as the shame on her face is so loud. She looks years older than she is. Methamphetamines have sordidly robbed her of her integrity, her looks, her health…her humanity. As a nurse and a mother, I can detect that she is not even 25 years old. …
Is that Trump I hear in the background?
I am stumped to confer with the consensus
that he has won anything
but a resounding kick in the pants.
Hard to imagine a unified state
after what he has pulled…
hard to believe we are better off
now than when he walked in.
But, that’s what he’ll say.
Breaking free of a tyrant
proves stickier than just removing him.
His residue will linger
His hatred beleague Her
This country we once stood for at anthem.
Now no anthem rings truer
than the one seeking justice, truth and fairness
to the ones fallen, beaten…
How to stop the hideous crimes against children…go and get them. They are prisoners of a war.
Make us faceless in our dreams
As we war to stop the screams
Of those who small and terrified
Are stolen innocent to lose their lives
Make us swift, silent, deceptively sleek
As veiled, as they, to reveal the meek
We will rip them back from your dark
And flee on foot and leave, no Mark6
You won’t know where
You’ll just hear the Word
And not one will lose their voice to the Herd.
Flat on the floor we fight for their…
The long, lonely road of living true to your self
To truly live against the grain, one must accept that they will never be popular, never be part of the in-crowd, and will most often be at the center of controversy and rejection by the very expression of their innate nature to move past everyone else…going the opposite way.
The nonconformist knows this choice is first and foremost…not a choice. It just is. …
for us “other writers” on Medium
The room is full of feathers,
cotton fluff and me
the feathers blow about the space and cotton drift solemnly
No one keeps a watch on me
As I stare on. Helplessly.
Other newer wisps or cotton puffs,
the air beneath them light and airy
are lifted quickly by their priors-be
to the center effortlessly
And seem no weight to carry
Feathers bounce and sway
to make their way around.
The cotton, floating near the ground,
make very little sound.
But I stay. Pondering.
I instead still move toward
the middle of the room
just trying to get to a…
Education and Recognition
It is a lie that generational addiction cannot be altered or prevented.
It is the sad truth that babies born to addicts continue to be outcasts in the medical field and subsequently in society, when their disturbing and curious symptoms begin to visibly emerge.
Labeling the child of an addict with separative diagnoses that do not confer to their mother’s drug use during pregnancy or to the results of a child living with an addict is a common phenom with psychiatrists, social workers and physicians. …
“I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth — and truth rewarded me.”
― Simone de Beauvoir
My parents grew up in the sixties and had me in 1968…a year I am proud to have been born in and associated with.
My dad wore moccasin boots, smoked pot, wrote songs and was a passive activist for freedom…in context and in contrast, also signing up for the Marines in the time of Vietnam.
This decision in itself was a controversy due to the fact that the very gentle nature of my father forbid an inclination to fight anyone. A soldier who independently signed up for service would serve 2 years, not four as was the case with a drafted individual. …
A white grandma fostering advocacy as early as possible
Bravery.
Advocacy.
Courage.
Love.
These are traits that protestors embody when they stand for a cause at any cost.
These are traits I taught my children to have as they were growing up through instructing them to fight for anyone that society treats as the “underdog” and especially through the example of my own advocacy for the many, many forgotten members of society that were my patients in my nursing career.
I want my grandchildren to understand these traits are also decisions and are crucial to living as loving human beings who serve their fellow man. …
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