Saturday Poem

Building her Case

She was building her case.

Soon she would be facing them.

And she wanted to make sure

that she’d have enough evidence

that she was who she said she was.

She had been working all her life.

She had a track record.

A resumé.

She had witnesses galore.

But you know how these things are.

They are not like you, those judges.

Those who make decisions are not among us

and they do not understand us.

They do not respect us.

They do not know us.

They do not understand the hardships we’ve grown through

or the amazing odds we’ve had to surpass to do what we have achieved.

They do not see us in our beauty.

Instead they see “the other;”

An unknown not to be trusted.

I don’t have to tell you how it is.

They minimize us.

They ask three times the documentation from us

just to give us the leftovers.

So as she prepared to be evaluated

to be given that job, that loan, that apartment, that scholarship, that title;

She went into fighting mode.

She knew this mode.

It had served her all her life

to make sure that she was given what she had earned.

She was building a case.

But inside, deep inside, a tiny tiny cry rose,

trembling in her guts

“Am I enough?”

“Is this really true?”

“Is all I’ve done enough?”

“Have I truly earned this privilege?”

And it was that cry, those questions

that she was trying to squelch

as she built a case

for those who would evaluate her.

Maria Mar©2014

November 7, 2014

New York, New York

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