Push Option

The People Pound

orphanages/foster care

 by V. Martin

For the lowest of the low,

where the unwanted go

the human lost and found.

I call it the people pound.

I spent a lot of time there

since there was no one to care

when I was a child.

I ran a little wild.

Sure, most of the time I'd rather be dead

but I'm a coward if the truth be said.

So I suck it up the best I can,

But seriously, does anyone have a plan?

If you do, would you let me take a look?

Because as it is I can write a book.

The book of self-destruction:

How to hate yourself yet still function.

because if I don't it's back to the people pound

Where they always take me, lost and never found.

This is not what I expected to find here. If memory serves, which its not) this should contain a piece I wrote on how foster kids or at least the one that age out of the system are considered a push option on the market. This thought first came to me when I was issued by the state of Indiana this slip of paper with Cirtificate of Birth printed at the top then my name date of birth and my adopted mothers name and the seal of the state of Indiana. That's it nothing more, no feet prints, no ribbon, no mention of a father or grandparents. On a really ugly yellow piece of paper. Push options are what someone buys when betting against a company's success. That is what kids that age out of the system are considered and betting against them is like money in the bank. How else are we going to off set the millions, no billions of dollars they suck out of the system every year? This is what society has come to? Can't we no we have to do better then this! If we could look back at all the time that has passed between now and the moment we could have still made a difference to future generations and yet we chose and choose to do nothing different!

We hear the cry of the opressed but don't even look to see where its coming from. Society slowly suffocates anyone and everyone it deems insuferable, a waste of flesh, a loser, not contributing to society, draining resources, and on and on. These people don't even have an address let alone a voice! Orphans that live to age out of the system usually end up in an institution, jail, or cemetary, or homeless. It's funny because whenever any TV show deals with a homeless person they have a family, usually a veteran, alcoholic, black but in reality most are orphans and white. At least the long term homeless because as usual no one cares about them. They are the professional homeless that no one likes nor knows what to do with because no one cares. I CARE!!!! I CARE!!!! REALLY! I CARE! Please don't leave this world thinking no one cares because I do. Not that makes a bit of difference to you, it has made all the difference in mine. Where ever I am you are with me, you matter to me! No matter what you have done in the past, I forgive you as long as you never do it again. Your names I don't know but your pain is my pain your joy is my joy. You are all I think about, night and day. I dream about meeting all of you someday, for you are my children, the unwanted ones. I want you!!!! I need you! I can't keep pretending that I don't know your suffering. You are not alone, I am with all of you, you are a part of me, you make me who I am and give me the will to live to go on so I can make a difference to all of you. Even if its all I have to give are these words I put out into syber space may never reach anyone because none of you probably have a computer or phone or internet. To reach you I may have to find another way but if anyone that reads this knows any orphans or homeless people read this to them please. They are all I have and I need them to know this. Thank you in advance.

#ME3#

18 is The Scariest Age

by V. Martin 2018

 Most kids can't wait to turn eighteen it's a mile stone in a persons life. Legally you're an adult, responsible for yourself but some are still in high school having turned eighteen during the school year. Imagine being put out on the street on your birthday with no place to go and no way to get there. You have no cell phone, less than $100 to your name, no job, no family to turn to, nothing.  You don't even have a high school diploma or GED. When you're a child in the foster care system, everyday is scary, this doesn't happen to every child in the system but more often then not. You never know what to expect so you learn to expect the worst.
With that in mind, you're approaching your eightieth birthday finally legally an adult.  Your own person with ...?  You don't even have a drivers license, let alone a car. As soon as you turn eighteen, legally an adult, you no longer have a place to live.  The foster home you've been able to live with for the past six months or so can't afford to support you without the state's funds.  You weren't allowed to get a driver's license or work full time while in school.  The job you use to work after school is no longer available since it was passed on to a younger student.  You want to go to college or a trade school but that possibility fades along with everything you know.  No where to go no car to get there no family to reach out to no home to even go to, you don't even have a cell phone.  Odds are not in your favor, once on the street you do what you have to to survive, if you survive.

When a married couple gets a divorce and they have joint custody of their children who ever pays child support does so until they are nineteen.  Why then are foster children cut off, sometimes completely, from resources like a place to live?  It seems to me these kids don't stand a chance because they're not even given one.  I get not letting you drive because of the liability and insurance but can't some big automobile manufactures help out with that and assist in supplying discounted vehicles?  It takes a village so gather the villagers to care for these kids, collectively.  In the long run it will only serve to save them money and the crime rate would probably drop.  The drug epidemic would be over, society as a whole would heal.  We need to be our bothers keepers but not to keep him down instead we need to lift him up, collectively.  As a whole the children will be able to pick the best society has to offer be it the janitor at school or the CEO of the company that sponsors their transition from froster care to a message runner for a big Wall Street firm.  No car necessary but a valid ID, social security card, and a fast bicycle will be needed for your future.  At least now you have one. 

Maybe we should rename the "foster care system"  to the #Me3#.  Because take it from me when I tell you these kids know they have a voice but believe even if they are heard no one will listen.  Worse then that is the conditioning it takes to get you to believe the way you're being treated is normal.  Can you imagine believing it's normal to have your foster Dad slip into your bed every night to sexually assault you.  Before you can even think about telling anyone you're being called names of the worst kind, degrading you, conditioning you.  The foster care system is a predators dream come true.  There are people out there that don't want to abuse their own children, for obvious reason.  Maybe they would have to answer to the other parent or who knows, that's were you come in.  You prepped for your new role in your new family by constantly being reminded how lucky you are to have a family like theirs to take you in.  How some people are so mean and even abusive in the worst possible ways.  How grateful you must feel to them for everything they are doing for you as they slip some drug into your juice.  You know what comes next and more and more of the same.  Until you don't even know what day it is or wether it's day or night nor do you care.  You stopped doing that the first night.   

It happens so frequently it becomes the norm.  No, not just normal but expected.  So much so that any other kind of treatment makes you hurt so bad you can't even take a breath. When kindness has been absent from your life for so long any act of kindness is such a contrast from what is now normal it makes your head flip flop, your heart swallow, your throat beat, and your stomach spin.  It can literally save you or kill you! It's almost like starving but not from food but from humanity and too much at once will send you over the edge.
Anyway, a year more would make all the difference in the world for these kids. A year to get a drivers license, a phone, a car, a job, or get enrolled in college or trade school. My point being is that in most cities a car in absolutely necessary to get a job and/or go to school.