“Youth Worker, apparently”
They say my job is
fannying around with table tennis bats,
checking the chalk for the pool table,
booking the minibus for Alton Towers,
as if that were the whole constellation
of what I do.
They picture me
leaning on a counter,
keys jangling,
laughing at renditions
of “Mockney Hallelujah”,
a sort of professional older sibling
with a petty cash tin.
But the truth is
I learned to read hunger
in the way a teen’s eyes flick
and five-finger-discount snacks;
the ones who haven’t seen
their social worker
since they were five
and have stopped expecting adults
to remember their names.
I learned that “behavioural issues”
are often just a young man
with additional learning needs
counting the cost of love,
because someone taught him
affection is transactional.
And that a year can break you
when migrant kids are accused
of things they didn’t do,
and the police officer in licensing
leans back in his chair
and tells you it’s sweet that you care
but none of your business.
As if care were a hobby.
As if those kids weren’t
my whole damn business.
That was the year
stress carved its initials
into my nervous system,
the year my seizure disorder
came back like an old debt
I thought I’d paid off.
The body keeps score
when the world refuses
to listen to concerns.
And still -
I showed up with the table tennis bats.
I checked the chalk.
I booked the trips.
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