Holding Onto Hope
Every week is a struggle to pay the bills.
Every day she has to run from work to daycare
because owning a car is too expensive
and the city bus takes too long.
She runs quickly to make sure she’s on time
because her kids are her only hope.
The only thing keeping her going is hope.
Hope that she’ll get her paycheck before she has to pay the bills,
that she’ll get enough money in time
to pay for the costs of daycare.
The lines at the bank are much too long
and with every waiting minute, life gets more expensive
Everything is too expensive
for a mother with little hope.
She has to buy her kids’ pants a bit too long
so that she can pay the bills
for the everlasting fees of daycare
that she’s never able to pay on time.
If only she could buy more time.
That’s an investment that wouldn’t be too expensive.
Maybe then she wouldn’t need daycare.
With more time, maybe she wouldn’t need to hope
for her husband to come back to help pay the bills
after being gone so long.
He’s been gone so long.
The kids have noticed it’s been a long time.
He promised he’d help pay the bills
because he knew they were too expensive
for a mother with little hope
and kids to put in daycare.
Her husband knows the kids hate going to daycare.
They miss being away from their parents for so long.
Every day they hope
for their father to come back and pick them up on time.
They don’t know that their lives are expensive
or that their existence revolve around paying the bills.