Scars

We’re never dispatched into happy homes

No, we’re sent into the broken ones

We’re tasked to save the stabbed, shot, beaten and brutalized

We witness the child holding his broken toy left behind by a burglar

The vacant stare in the woman who knows a stranger has been touching her lingerie

The anger and grief in a husband who knows he cannot protect his family

Night after night, month after month, for years

A lifetime

We do what we can knowing it will never be enough

Then we try to sleep at night, knowing they’re out there