A Clinicians Poem

Elisa A. Escalante/ LCSW/ 6-21-2021

They say they can tell me anything.

And they mean it, they tell me everything.

Then I care, but then don’t care,

I’ve been living in a nightmare.

It’s a gift and a curse I say,

they trust me, how did it get this way?

From hearing secrets on the playground…

to helping people find escape routes?

They say it’s so rewarding,

that it will always be my calling…

but they don’t see what’s in their eyes,

as they tell me that they want to die.

I see the scars left on their minds,

and their wrists from the other night.

And burnout is a real thing,

I’m often haunted by the things they say.

From the torture that the girl saw,

and the blood scattered on the walls.

The man who saw his wife get shot,

And that girl who survived assault. 

Or the soldier that wanted to die,

used his M16 to end his life,

just hours after I talked to him,

I’ll always wonder what it is I did?

This job isn’t for the weak,

Or the ones that don’t know how to speak,

It takes something that is so unique,

a different set of qualities.

I always say that it chose me,

that this is who I’m meant to be,

I can’t run from it if I tried,

they still find me to confide.

It’s a full-time type of life,

even my boyfriend’s, friend’s new wife…

and some stranger that I just met,

because emotions will never end.

For there to be a job for me,

I relied on people’s misery,

and that is what hurts the most,

I’m between a rock and a solid stone.