Youth Speaks的动态

Transcript

Shuffle of metal to metal teeth. Wrist twitching left at the end of cold night. 12 hour shift turned 13. Sighs as Nanai breathes the front door open. I don't look up. Living room makes with I'm home now they kept me till 9 but I'm here, he says here like conclusive ending like she doesn't have to do this all again tomorrow. 5:00 AM Heavy says her heels hurt, holds legs lead in when she sits down but I'm fine. Really. An instinctive exhale she bundles airtight and from there paces the floorboard to wincing this new gate strut of what we call the essential, the front line. My mother posting at the end of the line when waiting for citizenship shipped across the Pacific. Ring money back home to your family if you get the chance. But greater achievement than leaving your archipelago pipelined halfway across the ocean, pushed and pulled by two countries, got caught in the middle of their economy. But. How lucky to be part of a healthcare system that sees you as expendable. I mean essential. I mean that Filipinos make up 4% of the nurses in the US but 31.5% of nurse deaths from COVID-19. America pricked with needle pinpoints and picks out new capital came highly recommended. 123 years of carving this pathway for you, trained you, taught you position a bedside care of ICU's of emergency rooms acute and long term. Inpatient RN nanai. Ben's history until it fits neatly in her back pocket, and the pair of scrubs she washes and wears, wears and washes, sits them neatly on a hanger, hangs her limbs through their sleeves. The branch is not in mark on skin like a shield. Because that work she sways in the face of Squall. Now her body is flooded. So she hangs the scrubs again to dry, Tells me they're dirty when the living room floor creaks beneath her. And so I stopped my face from falling into the cotton. Tell her that my little sister is already brushing her teeth. How the dishes are in the sink now, dazzling to somewhere in the house now. How the food is probably cold now. How I'm sorry we didn't wait for you said prayers to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Even though we stopped going to church years ago, but somehow still end up sinking into our palms, silent and still and listening for the Russell and driveway, the click of key in here, here, here. We search for holy tongues, trying to figure out what to say, what to do. To ask if you were to fill in your chair empty in the kitchen. It's what an arms and legs stiff and hesitance get gripping to whatever air is still leaking, lingering from lungs waiting for. Response. Instead, when I ask you about your day, you told me you have to take a shower to wash the long shifts from your skin. So you dip into the bathroom. You're the powder of water hitting the bathtub floor running. And running and running away. What does it mean to disappear? To leave the table, leave the room, house, home, excel country and leave because of a session, because Marcos. Because unemployment went up and now it's called a permanent migration route. Because 20,000 nurses are exported from the Philippines every year. Backbone of healthcare since the 60s. Been backbend since the US called colonization benevolent assimilation in 1898 and there are now a total of 150,000 Filipino nurses holding up our hospitals. And now I'm wondering if they're sterile walls will hold up her. What I mean is that I don't want her to leave. What I mean is that when the news channel said nurses would get their vaccine, it felt like tension released but still crescendoing the noise, the high pitched and pitched ear of what it means to trust it. This, this poem is not a virus, but this poem is not protection. However, getting the vaccine is proven prevention that can slow down the spread of this infection because the less that people get the virus, the less the virus mutates and replicates, turning itself into her deathbed. That turned it up for breath once thought shadow boom up to the surface when time ticked and hit 12:00 AM. On the couch, he tells me it's too late for a bedtime story. Like she already knows the ending, like she's too exhausted to hear it. But I worry I'll close my eyes and she'll be gone forever. So I keep us awake. The lateness of the hour. She breathes for rust through chest and spine, temple and quiet lips, sits the swell of her waist upright and takes in the inhale. 95% efficacy. It's true, she says. 100% effective in preventing serious infection or deaths from COVID, which means that yes. I will still leave. So go to work every week. But I'll be safe. You'll be safe. And yes. I will come home to you.