A child where I work was having a hard time last night. It was one of those times when you just want to be left alone to sort out your thoughts and feelings for yourself, but people keep prying and trying to get you to bend to their will. He had gotten pretty worked up, and really needed to be left alone. Yet because he said some things that indicated he might hurt himself, he also had to be supervised. I managed to intervene and get him twenty minutes of personal space. I stayed near him, and my night-shift supervisor was near, but we both had the presence of mind not to talk to him except to quietly state a couple of simple expectations—basically the time he had available for self reflection.
I could see pain and rage in his eyes, and I could relate. He talked of being worthless earlier, and I wondered if that had something to do with it all. When he said he was worthless, I explained to him then that there is a big difference between “being” and “feeling” worthless. I told him, “you feel worthless, but this is not the same as actually being worthless.” I made it clear to him that to feel worthless is to feel worthless, but that feeling worthless doesn’t actually mean you’re worthless—It is a feeling only.
He seemed to catch on, though it took a while. Later, after he had calmed down some, I heard him tell my supervisor, “I hate feeling worthless.” It was nice to see him recognize and look it as a feeling. He ended up going to sleep. And as the night wore on I found myself reflecting on that look I noticed in his eyes.
Value
for a particular youth
I watched the cyclone raging through your mind
behind the storm front of your gray-blue eyes;
I felt the gale wind thrust of every word
you bellowed to the over-clouded skies.
And here is what I saw: An empty place.
A realm so foreign to the world of men
that few could bear to grasp or understand
the magnitude of desolation there.
The ground as far as I could see was razed,
wiped free of every feature bearing hope;
a river seethed throughout the barren fields,
filled with poisons welled from pools loss.
All horizons bore the faintest touch
of mountains, jagged shadows ripped from time;
the sky was silver-gray with high-spun clouds,
the kind that never break to show the sun.
And here were you, hunched over on your knees,
your fingers clutched into the ash gray soil,
stunned into a state of pallid shock,
silent, still, and breathing low and mild.
I could not guess what leveled all you knew
and left you magically alive—alone.
But when I heard you murmur, “I am worthless,”
I creepingly began to understand.
Dear Soul! What worthless thing could hold!?
What petty life could face such storms of loss!?
What worthlessness could carry on despite
the emptiness of such a barren scape!?
This life is yours! This plane of dreams your own!
Whatever storms have left you thus are gone.
Now you must stand and walk until you grasp
the nature of your reconfigured lands!
Stand tall! For you have shown your truest mettle.
You have endured where most have failed and died.
Your face still holds the will to learn and grow—
So go! Explore the landscapes of your life.
Those distant mountains surely harbor hopes.
And they are yours, so go and see what kind.
But you must leave this place of tragedy,
this epicenter of your broken past.
This place is but a fragment of your soul.
There is much more to you than what you see.
Beyond those mountains continents are filled
with every form of possibility.
For there are treasures hidden in your world,
and there are forests standing green and wild,
but you must make the survey of your soul,
to learn your inner worth and sense of value.
I’d like to give him a copy of this poem, but there are strict policies in place concerning client-staff relations. Giving him a copy would be entering into a gray area that may or may not have repercussions. So I’ll err on the side of personal safety.
