Helpers
Look for the helpers, someone once said I forget who but the quote lives free in my head The angels sent to pull you out of the quagmire The messengers spoken through by a power higher Everyone bleeds and everyone screams or pinches it off with fingers digging into knees Easier to stem a flow or bite a tantrum back for each other than it is for ourselves when black tides pull us under So wait and see who shows up when you're gone from your wits Who all stops to help when your car up and quits on your way to the first interview you've lined up in a while When you need a quick jump or quick ride a few miles I pray they find you always and you find souls seeking solace too right when they need a kind of help no one can do quite like you All of us are the helpers Will you help me make that true?
The poem “Helpers” feels like someone sitting beside you on the worst day of your year, not saying “be strong,” but simply staying so you don’t fall apart alone. It understands that life breaks us in small, humiliating ways a car that dies at the wrong moment, a mind that frays without warning, a hope that feels too fragile to hold. The half‑remembered quote at the beginning feels like something we cling to when we’re scared, a scrap of comfort we keep turning over in our hands. The poem knows how hard it is to save ourselves, how much easier it is to steady someone else’s shaking breath. Its scenes feel painfully real, the kind of moments when you silently pray that someone anyone will stop and help. Beneath every line there is a longing for human presence, for the simple grace of being noticed when you’re slipping under. And then the poem turns toward us with a kind of trembling trust, asking whether we might become that presence for others. It reminds us that we are all fragile, all needed, all capable of offering the small mercies that keep another person afloat. In the end, it feels less like a poem and more like a hand reaching out in the dark, hoping we’ll take it.