i saw you trying
to the man that came into the place i volunteer at today,
i expected our conversation to weigh on me differently. i braced for it to follow me home. but what i felt instead, after you left, was more like stillness, something not entirely resolved but - maybe summarized in what you said yourself, at the end.
you told me a lot about your pain, about the hand you've been dealt, your eyes squarely forward, not meeting my own, as if seeing and living through each hardship again. what struck me the most is that, despite it all, you are trying so hard, and it feels like none of it is paying off, like no one is even noticing that trying in its futility. but i saw you trying. maybe i'm foolish for thinking so, but i think that meant something. i always want to be seen trying.
"i think this is a good start," you said. and i said, without thinking, "i think it's a great start."
i'm trying too. there's a gulf between our worlds - i'm not naive enough to think otherwise. anyone could tell by looking at us: me, soft-voiced and soft-handed in a knit sweater; you, dressed practically for the city's capricious weather, a suitcase at your feet. i came in today with a paperback tucked into my messenger bag, my greatest concern my own boredom. there's an understated brutality in that.
there's so much i don't know, and i always wonder, like why people are dealt the cards they are. but i know what it feels like to wrestle with the darkness, almost give up again and again, and keep going anyway - some stubborn, human part of you clinging to yourself, and the world, and the future.
i hope things get better for you. i hope you never stop trying.