Dedication: kids in foster care
The first time I felt the heaviness of the handcuffs digging into my small wrists, the cool metal biting into her skin. i sat in the back of the police car, the engine’s hum filling the awkward silence. i glanced out the window, watching my old neighborhood blur. It felt surreal, like a dream where you run but never get anywhere. “Is it true?” i had asked the officer when he took me from my foster home, her heart racing. “Are you taking me away?” But he didn’t answer. They never did. From that day on, life turned into a whirlwind of unfamiliar faces and places. i was moved from one foster home to another, each one more foreign than the last. The walls were painted different colors, but the emptiness was the same. The only constant was the ache in my chest—an ache that deepened with every goodbye. “There’s a new family for you, Lindsey,” my social worker said usual overly cheerful tone. But i didn’t want a new family. i wanted the old one, the one i didn’t understand how i could lose so easily. “You’ll fit in,” dawson continued, but I felt the words like daggers. i wanted to scream that i wouldn’t fit in anywhere. i never got the chance to speak my truth. Every time i tried, it felt like voices echoed back at me, but they were hollow, not listening. So i learned to keep quiet, burying my fears beneath layers of forced smiles. Just before i get moved again, my things would be hastily packed—if they packed them at all. Most of my belongings, treasured items that linked me to better days, vanished without a trace. “We’ll figure it out later,” they’d say. But “later” never came. Each home was supposed to feel like a refuge, but instead, they felt like prison cells. Id curled up on the bed of yet another stranger, the pastel walls clashing with my grim reality. All i wanted was to be able to call my friends, the people who understood the quiet battles I fought. Instead, my phone was taken away—another remnant of my freedom snagged from my grasp. With each new house, i felt myself splintering. The support I thought i had from the social workers faded into disappointment. They never provided the solace i craved. They were supposed to help me, yet they never stayed long enough to understand my struggles. To them, i was just another case file. After a while, trust became a stranded concept, suspended beyond my reach. By the fifth move, I understood that survival meant planning my escape, longing to find a way back to the people who truly cared. “They wouldn’t listen, anyway,” id whisper to myself with each goodbye. “Running is the only option.”
As I sat in the dim light of yet another unfamiliar room, i thought about the world outside—about the laughter of children playing, the warmth of familiar voices. It gnawed at my insides, a constant reminder that i was alone. The disconnect from my community wrapped around me like a heavy fog, blurring my memories. i often wondered why there was so much funding to take children away but not enough to keep families together. Wasn’t it more traumatic to uproot lives? To take away love and belonging? With nothing but unresolved questions swirling inside my mind, i closed my eyes and wished for stability—a home that would hold me, not push me away. But as night fell, all i could do was whisper my fears into the darkness, hoping that in the chaos of my wandering heart, someone would hear my cry for help and finally listen.
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Photo credit: Images provided by the storyteller.
