Jackie Dallaire
published April 21, 2020
They walk through the doors
Hands full of phones with charger cords and headphones dangling
purses backpacks chick fil a
wearing flip flops spandex sweaters jeans crop tops
they are loud and exuberant, quiet and shy
they yell and they smile
laugh cry play loud music.
Contained chaos, they are forces of nature
But they are also young and they have Questions
Concerns
And Stories.
There are some days when
it is hard to breathe with the weight of their stories.
Hidden stories that lurk behind benign reasons to visit clinic
HeavyPeriodsDischargeSTItestingBirthControl
Stories of pain and trauma, of confusion and loneliness
Pressured to have sex they don’t want to have
Family members ripped away in violence
Abuse Neglect Unwanted pregnancy
Some days
You spend the visit
Trying to collect the pieces of their childhood off the floor
Trying to patch it up and put it back together
Into something that smells like warm cookies in the oven after school
And fresh cut grass on a Sunday morning
That feels like a warm hug on a bad day
A Spiderman bandaid on a skinned knee.
Something good and bright
Trying to give them what they deserve
The deep and steady knowing of their own worth.
In the quiet moments after clinic, when the last patient is gone
On those days, on the bad days
There is an echo of pain
As if each room were a time capsule slowly opening
The walls whispering, retelling the stories that have seeped into the sterile white paint.
On the really bad days, you are the time capsule
And your brain whispers the stories you have borne witness to.
We call them teens
Those in the awkward progression between child and adult.
But in some of them there is no time for awkward, no time for progress
No time
In them, there is only war between the adult life has forced them to become
And the child chasing them through the years, arms full of innocence and hope.
A little girl running through an empty park
A fistful of balloon strings tangled in her fingers
Hoping to catch up in time to give what she has left
Before the wind sweeps it away.
Storytellers and truthspeakers, fighters, children
They come and they go
and their resilience leaves you breathless.
the necessity of their resilience breaks your heart.
Editor's Commentary