He/She Didn't Qualify

I'm now managing the online store for Invisible Youth and am creating products to sell there. Among the products are t-shirts that bear this original poem:

He Didn't Qualify

Society remained comfortable
with putting a child who needed major surgery
on his emotional well-being
into one program after another
that had only band-aids to offer.
There were places he could have gone
to get the help he needed,
but he didn't qualify.
He was always either
too bright or too slow;
too young or too old;
too financially well-off
or not financially well-off enough;
too this or too that.
He grew to be a man,
and his problems grew worse--
MUCH WORSE!
There was a cell on death-row
and an execution date--
He qualified.

Ainsley Jo Phillips

along with a version I wrote with a female as the main character instead of a male:

She Didn't Qualify

Society remained comfortable
with putting a child who needed major surgery
on her emotional well-being
into one program after another
that had only band-aids to offer.
There were places she could have gone
to get the help she needed,
but she didn't qualify.
She was always either
too bright or too slow;
too young or too old;
too financially well-off
or not financially well-off enough;
too this or too that.
She grew to be a woman,
and her problems grew worse--
MUCH WORSE!
There was a cell on death-row
and an execution date--
She qualified.

Ainsley Jo Phillips

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