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In Case of Emergency
"Reminding my heart that in case of an emergency, clock out, be free from your worries."
Listen to this Poem!
By Darlene Chavarria
In case of an Emergency,
clock out; be free
from your worries, your thoughts
and anything an angry pain can jot.
It seems like nothing can change that the fact that my anger ties me up in knots,
or that my past is filled with
broken cots that couldn’t be slept on or eaten.
And if I didn’t fix breakfast I’d get beaten
doing anything to avoid my mom getting high
so she wouldn’t try to trade me like our tables, our beds, our lives to the dope man.
With nothing to sell but herself
to the pimp down the street
so she could support her dug habit and so we could eat.
I never bit her crack pipe hand
and people laugh when I couldn’t stand
to even look at my uncle in a casket.
When he was gone, no more Christmas presents or Easter basket.
Just food from the Ox burger to shut us up,
stale fries with no Ketchup
and when things would get better,
she would screw it up some how.
My mother the addict was set to self-destruct now.
I didn’t understand the word
crack head or
what she meant
when she said she was burnt out.
And why she stayed in bed for days
and why she smelled like she had a fire in her hair
when my life seemed so unfair.
Why she accused me of stealing money she never had,
why I felt so bad,
why was I considered a normal kid?
But the only friends I could find,
the social workers and therapists that pried into my mind.
I didn’t know what they were looking for,
or why they took me away to roam, from foster home to foster home,
and introduced me to the system where I was molested and tested,
where I had nothing to live for,
where my pain shot from the core of my heart.
Damn, where did this poem start?
Spitting it like it might sooth my burning soul,
make me whole with my pen I roll on the Metro link
and I haven’t even paused to think
if I miss my stop or I need to breathe,
because when I do get off,
I’ll be back where I started,
reminding my heart that in case of an emergency,
clock out,
be free
from your worries,
your thoughts
and anything an angry pain can jot.
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