The Cause

The Cause

 

Twelve-plus hours a day

seven days a week

of organizing, pushing, leading.

No rest for us,

but we didn’t care.

The cause was greater.

 

Alienation from friends, families.

Missing birthdays, baby and wedding showers,

times just making memories

because our calling was more

than to just be passive activists.

  

“Why aren’t you doing more?

You can knock doors,

make phone calls,

attend rallies!

Why aren’t you doing enough?”

These thoughts streamed through our brains

when someone wished up luck,

said we have their support,

said they had our backs.

 

Feelings of failure.

“If I had only done this…

then we would have won,

we most surely would have

saved lives.”

The implications of our failures

were greater than others’

as we saved strangers’

livelihoods, health, access to compassionate care.

No time to

be human.

We went ‘home’

(even though where we laid our heads

was never actually home),

ingested drugs,

fell into chaotic sleeps.

 

We couldn’t be our true selves,

as our lives belonged to

the cause.

 

We faltered

landed harshly.

We wanted to scream,

“I am only just

a human!”

But to what? The cause?

 

We deserved rest,

but we didn’t realize it

until after

the burnout.

***