I was already crying when he hugged me, but in the embrace I just let go. Call it weakness; it felt so good to cry, to grieve out the stories (the kid's stories) that haunt every day and settle into a dirty haze that slowly darkens dreams. There is so much of it, and so much to do, that there is never any time to mourn, and without mourning, there is never any dawn, and there is never new light.

There is such release in abandoning the dishonesty that everything is OK.
Teaching in the Delta is like committing your heart to perjury. You pretend, based on some conception of strength, that there is nothing here you can't handle.

Before Mississippi, it is easy to believe that poetry is worth writing, a canvas is worth painting, a book is worth reading, a photo is worth taking. Before this we trust in our own competence and strength; it has, after all, always worked before. Enveloped in the false security of good home lives, loving families, close friends and strong academic backgrounds, it is easy to have faith in the beauty of living. Every minute is a canvas.

Once that illusion is broken, it is irreparable, and it takes time to get there. For months and months, you go into school, thinking you are going to fix everything, make it all better, amazed time and time again at the chaos and often tempted to complain about the disorder, the unfairness. Unlike your students, you were not raised with the inherent understanding that life is unfair. Through battle after battle, you march into school, winning some and loosing some, but still clinging to some faith that it will get better, that you can win this war.

When you realize just how deep the darkness really is, it threatens to swallow you. Poetry and art and even conversation require too much faith to even begin. You cannot fix this new world that you have stumbled into, and now that you know it exists, you can't go back to the one you came from. Suddenly, you are helpless. It's too hard to write, to focus on work, to wake up in the morning, to laugh and mean it.

I've been in a stage where I'm burnt out, heart broken, mentally filthy and damn near hopeless for my students. I've been day-dreaming about the future, thinking about next year, mostly because I've hit a wall here. I think about plans for next year because I am overwhelmingly guilty about all that I am not accomplishing with my students, and all that I don't think I can accomplish anymore. I stopped loving them. It feels like I'm watching them disappear a few at a time, until I've lost them all completely, and it is a battle of me against them, instead of me for them.

Crying tonight was like coming back to life. It's not OK. It's not going to be better. But we are accomplishing something, with some of our kids.

If there is one thing that makes this program possible, it is the other people. The only people who can offer comfort are those who understand, first hand. Thank God for friends.

Edit: One more thing. I do love them. That's why it hurts.