steel shiny
rubber rolling
windshield worlds
click, click, click
of my smartphone
driving@102fps

hotel suites
staff know my name
packed lunches dinners
complimentary breakfasts

then suit-up time
buttoned-down or t-shirted
(superman had his cape: ive got my blazer) and jeans
this psychologist’s uniform

preparing to understand
kids yelling punching soiling @102fps
parents struggling denying
enabling offending

another deep deep plunge
back into the infinite flow
of young faces hiding
tortured souls and secrets
finding dna of their pain

“abused”
“neglected”
“in placement”
“rights terminated”
are never just words
bandied about

so many violated kids
i gotta gotta know
102 feet per second
day in
day out
barely keeping up

“depraved”
“heartbreaking”
“tragic”
all those realities apply

lived their prisons
felt their rages
knew their numbness
storms before my calm
lived decades before
lived lives ago
lived PTSD life
always fighting
always dying
rising up again
until no1Left2fight
but me

being part of their journeys
starting their evolutions
of making mountains into
pebbles on their paths
helping them find miracles

when the evals all done
it’s never barely mentioned
each a stranger again

afterwards i
slip off the sport coat
slip into the car
meditate and
send out healing
as i heal@102fps

copyright 2020: all rights reserved

photo: untitled windshield landscape (Trout Run, PA)