Through Pain Unbearable and Impossible to Name

Imagine that this is not how people see you. Imagine that the stain has been washed off. Imagine that you never sat on the pavement while the paramedics laughed and refused to place you in an ambulance and take you to the hospital, to offer care to a homeless body, a corrupt body, a worthless body, an unnecessary body. Imagine that it didn’t strike you as strange even then: the way your friend’s voice rose in a crescendo of disbelief and outrage, the way you couldn’t quite believe it, couldn’t quite emphasize with their pain. As if you had value. As if you were a human being. As if you were worth saving…. more