Earth 19: The One That Burned the Bill

This is my response to the big ugly bill. Millions of Americans will lose everything. I sang the blues today. I am disabled, old, and health issues. Yes, I will lose everything if something is not done to stop the Nazis and the Rumpty Dumpty crime syndicate.

Spirit who walks the welfare line

They said it was beautiful.

But beauty doesn’t starve children.

Beauty doesn’t cut the cord on grandma’s oxygen tank.

Beauty doesn’t come in 1,000 pages of fine print and fine lies.

Earth 19: The One That Burned the Bill

They say she died waiting.

Not in the poetic sense,

Not in the “she waited her whole life for justice” kind of way,

No.

She died in line,

At the welfare office,

Clutching a folder of expired documents and expired hope.

The line didn’t stop,

The scanner beeped,

The guards looked away,

And the system kept humming,

like it had been built to outlive her.

But she did not leave.

Now she walks the line.

Not as a ghost of vengeance,

but as a witness.

She whispers to the mothers juggling paperwork and babies.

She hums lullabies to the elders whose benefits were “reassessed.”

She stands beside the man who forgot his ID but remembered his dignity.

She is the frequency that makes the fluorescent lights flicker.

The reason the printer jams when they try to deny someone again.

The chill in the air when a caseworker says,

*“I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do.” *

She is the haunting reminder

that the safety net was never meant to catch everyone,

Only the quiet,

Only the grateful,

Only the ones who don’t ask why.

But she asks,

Every day,

With every step.

Why did they write a thousand pages to erase us?

Why did they call it beautiful?

Why did they think we wouldn’t remember?

She walks the line.

And we walk with her.

We are not ants.

We are the ones who remember.

written, created, and edited by

Vicki Lawana Trusselli

Trusselli Art

copyright 2025