There is this place I sometimes go.
A handful of faces press up against the window, eyes dancing with anxious curiosity -
Who is it?
What are they here for?
Is it my turn?
I can’t bear to look too deeply into these little rivulets of hope.
I am not here to save them.

When I learned the material, signed the papers, took the oath, I did not think it would be this way.
I imagined more happy than horror in these cases back then. I am fully jaded now.

You see, cases is a sterile way to say “kids’ lives.”
One learns to survive this insanity by adopting clinical language. It puts distance between you and the truth, between you, the un-savior, and the handful of faces pressing against the window.
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The room is bare.
It is functional, but cold.
Every square inch reinforces what it is - an emergency shelter.
In an emergency, comfort and warmth are amenities

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And so we stand, co-existing in the place of perpetual waiting -
they are waiting for an adult, their adults, to show up.
To show up and get it together and keep it together and realize that the kids they created and carried into the world are wasting away in an incubator of civility. They just want to be home...with their adults, no matter how undeserving those adults are.
I am waiting for someone to explain to me why the greatest victims of these cases are those little bodies tumbling over themselves to get to me -
Look at my tan!
I lost a tooth!
Miss, I’m six.
A six year old…
I am waiting for the heaviness to lighten and the grief to thin out so that I can find the words to convey -
I am sorry.