
Prompt: The Invisibility of Poverty
Josephine reminded herself not to put 10 on 20. To stay calm. To breathe, slowly, in then out, in then out.
She had received the proverbial pink slip once again. Budget cuts and shortfalls, her principal explained. She wondered how she was supposed to survive as a teacher when she keeps encountering the “last hired, first fired” paradigm. She wondered if she made the right decision about her career. Should she go back to school and get an Educational Administration credential? Maybe get her doctorate?
Josephine recognized these two ideas as pallets of bricks to continue to extend the path of poverty that she parades each day. I feel invisible, she thought. She felt invisible because she knew that her plight seemed trivial in the face of so many people unhoused and living in the public square. She said to herself, “Hell, I’m broke, too. I’m one payroll mishap or civil servant workplace behavioral incident away from heading to Walmart to get me some camping supplies.”
Josephine pondered her options and believed that it was best to be still and breathe. To mourn the loss of another job, another campus of adolescent minds to shape and wrestle with, and another group of colleagues and the work they collectively do. She thought
So much loss. Do they ever think about the people who follow these decisions? I’m a woman with multiple degrees and I live in poverty. Somebody, please make it make sense! I guess I might be okay if I could get tenure and move down the pay chart; but, these student loans are eating me alive. I’m driving a bucket because of those bitches! I’m live in a hovel! I pray that a stray bullet intended for another does steal my soul. And my neighbor on the left is a crackhead and homegirl on the other side of me is his dealer. He bangs on her door around the 25th of every month because he’s run out of crack and money. Crack does not flow on credit. Everybody knows that!
Living in poverty has made her invisible to many in society at large. However, she is highly visible to those around her who need some of the skills that she possesses. Josephine started a reading group and a journaling group for the children in her apartment complex. She wondered if she was the only one who saw these children and their unmet needs hiding in plain sight. Growing up in the vice of poverty and terrorized by its hateful cousins—generational trauma, addiction, hopelessness, and dreams shattered and distorted.
Josephine had managed to keep her dreams alive for 27 years, but dreams are never safe. Sadly, her dreams were threatening to crack under the pressure of reality’s heavy boot. Each morning she facetiously questioned her decision to become a teacher; and, this evening the question was defeaning.
In the eye of this storm, she chose to still herself and breathe. Am I being cynical, she thought to herself. She calmly shook her head and proclaimed, “I’ve gotta keep it pushin’.”