Mr. Kraft and his family lived in the town of 300 I grew up five miles north of. One day when I was about nine, he and my mother stood talking in his driveway. He nodded to me at one point and said quietly to my mother, “She’s got it.”

She, meaning me. Got it, as in. . . I don’t know what. But those three words have seen me through every rough patch of my entire life. Every awful conversation, every time someone has tried to tear me down, and also in those dark and frequent moments when I think, You’re a failure, Alison. 

I remember how still I stood in Mr. Kraft’s driveway that day, how something lifted from my shoulders, how the world suddenly seemed bigger and kinder. I thought of him again when I read this poem. Wherever you are now, Mr. Kraft, in whatever far-off universe, know how you softened the world for a small girl that day, and how she never forgot your words.

Why Bother, by Sean Thomas Dougherty

Because right now there is someone
out there with
a wound in the exact shape
of your words.

For more information about Sean Thomas Dougherty, please check out his website.