The last thing
is the email I receive
before shutting down
my computer for the day.
Subject line: Info for You to Know
My heart drops.
It’s about my boy in the hoodie.
Things are bad at home.
Mom has cancer.
Dad is not in the picture.
Little sister is battling mental illness
The financial struggles are overwhelming.
I look away from the screen
remembering the boy’s fictional story
from the fall.
The pieces fall together
as I read through his draft.
The reference to a sick mom
and a deadbeat dad.
A protagonist who steals Airs Jordans
to resale for cash-
money needed for medicine and food.
How the main character
tries to do right by his mother,
but the neighborhood gangs call to him,
offering him a way out.
How in the mornings, the boy
makes breakfast for the family,
so his mother can rest from the pain.
How the protagonist, who wears a black hoodie too,
says, “I am an overthinking mess
who is just trying to survive.”
The last thing that happened today
is a story that is not fiction at all
but rather a silent boy’s truth.
A truth I had not considered
but now understand,
and my heart
breaks.
