Failing Systems
For every voice made to wait while the safety net frays
Listen—
They told us the system was built to catch us.
But when we fall,
it answers with a locked door.
A dead phone line.
A form stamped DENIED
because one box—
one box—
was left without a mark.
Come to the kitchen table.
Look.
The numbers are laid out like bones,
and still they refuse to stretch.
Rent.
Medicine.
Heat.
Three winter hands at the window,
knocking—
knocking—
through the glass
of one thin wallet.
A parent counts the meals,
turns an empty cupboard
into a bedtime story:
We already ate. We are not hungry tonight.
An elder halves a dose
and listens to the clock
between each careful breath.
But listen—
beneath that frozen ground,
roots are gripping the dark.
And the worker?
The worker clocks in before sunrise,
sleep hanging from their shoulders like wet wool,
one small ember cupped against the wind,
then clocks out
still owing the day.
The shift runs long.
The paycheck does not.
Say it again:
the shift runs long—
the paycheck does not.
Rent climbs.
Mortgages climb.
Hours vanish.
The schedule changes without warning,
and one sick morning
splits the whole month open,
spilling every careful plan across the floor.
These hands lift.
These hands sweep.
These hands stock, carry, clean, build.
Palms split beneath cardboard and steel.
Backs burn beneath fluorescent suns.
Still—
these hands rise every morning.
Weathered tools.
Mended tools.
Tools that were promised
work would build a steady life.
So they become their own bridge:
plank by trembling plank,
name beside name,
shoulder beside shoulder,
even while the floor moves underfoot.
And when the hours are cut—
when the factory gate goes quiet—
lunch pails gather dust by the door,
work boots wait like faithful dogs,
and silence punches in for the night shift.
Still, a neighbor knocks.
Still, a meal appears.
Still, we become a patchwork roof—
each small kindness another shingle
held against the storm.
Then the frayed system asks for proof.
Proof that the fall was real.
Proof that the bruise belongs to us.
Proof that breaking
was not our fault.
Meanwhile, comfort speaks of sacrifice
as if sacrifice were weightless.
As if hunger were homework.
As if dignity could take a number,
sit down,
and wait.
So hear me—
when my own hands tremble,
when the stairs become a mountain,
when the rooms go cold
and the days narrow
to one long, dim hallway,
remember this:
We were never burdens.
We were people.
Roots gripping the dark earth.
Embers refusing the wind.
Bridges built from one another.
Hearts beating behind closed doors.
We are still here.
Still here.
Not asking to be carried—
asking for the ground to stop giving way.
Not asking to be praised—
asking not to disappear.
We were never burdens.
We were people.
We are people.
And we will not
be abandoned
in silence.
