Thanksgiving

Thanks Giving?

A single light bulb casts eerie shadows across the empty dining room
A lone figure sits in a broken chair leaning on an old end table.
Rain falls on the winter burned grass like the teardrops of her life.
On this Thanksgiving Day, there is no blessing even imagined in this wretched house.
Gone are the children, taken by Social Services with a court order.
The broken refrigerator has no food, the toilet won’t flush, and there is no heat.
No place for children to live, even if their loving mother did all she could.
In this land of plenty, she could do no better than her money would allow.
The blessings of Thanksgiving are needed every day by these people, not just one day.
With all hope gone, all reason to live taken from her, she picks up the syringe.
For a while there will be no pain, no fear, and no awareness.
A brief escape paid for with her body, sold to a man with no remorse.
Her body is an empty shell. It doesn’t matter what she does with it.
Or what anyone else does with it for that matter.
At least she can get money with what’s left of her worn out and scarred shell.
Money is what its about, right? Or is it?
No matter, another syringe full and she's good to go.
Pain is only for people who give a damn, not for whose guts are ripped out like her.
She has no pain as long as that sweet fluid keeps running into her veins.
Rescuing her from her lonely shell. It’s not her fault anyway.
Taking her to a place of escape from which she never wants to return.
Who would want to return to the cold and empty life in the "sober" world?
Not her.
Her body and mind, lost in a sea of no awareness, swimming around aimlessly,
As the rest of the world passes by.
If she did have something to be thankful for, she couldn’t recognize it now.
Just as she doesn't recognize her own reflection in the mirror.
Stranger to herself and her world, she walks the path fate has chosen,
She is alone, thankful for only the next injection of sedating numbness.
Her escape, her out, her life.
Another Thanksgiving has come and gone. No one notices her there.
We give thanks this one day each year, helping many others.
She can’t tell one day from another. Thanks giving one day is far from enough.
Give thanks every day, hour, and second. Pray for those who are down.
None of us is far from their place. What would you want from YOU?