We watch them every day
Living through hell
While we overindulge and feel the joys of life

Why don’t we see the misery all around us
Why don’t we feel their pain
Why are we ok with ignoring their cries for help

Are we all ok with their suffering
Are we so selfish that we value our belongings over their lives
Or are we just all asleep dreaming of a world where we don't have to feel uncomfortable when they ask for our money

When will we no longer be ok with their suffering
When will their lives come before our trinkets
When will we finally awake to see the people we hurt everyday

Until then we will continue to
Watch them every day
Living through hell
While we overindulge and feel the joys of life

"I walk these cold empty streets at
night,
Without knowing how to make it 
right,

As you sleep in your warm
bed,
I can't fathom how to make it
ahead.

Will you know I wandered
past,
Ponder it as you break your
fast?"

I’m not too sure how I really got here?
I just know my feet really hurt!

Like a thousand knifes all over my body, the cold cuts through me and my shirt.

I understand the disdain of Homelessness, trust me Brother, I do.
But my feet still hurt me my Sister, If only you could walk a day in my shoes.

But you cannot, because I have none, not a lace to my name.
The days are long, but the nights are longer still,
Though the cold is all the same.

My hands reach out in defiance, reliance in silence they cry!
Please Help Me! Please Help Me! my Father,
Please Help Me! Passerby.

Every night he’d count his lucky stars,
But he could never get past zero.

He curled against the city streets,
Nothing to drink, nothing to eat.

He had no one.
No one to make him feel like the sky was only being held up
because they existed.
Every single day he searched
For a reason to be alive.

Painting a smile on his face
As he stared at the flowers.
“Aren’t they beautiful?”
Telling himself he loved the sky and its stars,
Pleading with himself to find enjoyment in something. Anything.
Because he was scared if he didn’t find something,
He wouldn’t be living anymore.

He was the withering flower on the sidewalk,
He sat in people’s shadows
And never felt the sunlight on his skin.

Goosebumps spiked on his bare arms,
The light in the windows looked so warm.
Soft gold…
The radiant glow of guaranteed survival.

Every night he’d count his lucky stars,
But he could never get past zero.

To become poor
be miserable.
Chuck your shoes
into the ocean and feel
the sand in your toes.

Throw your last few sapphires
rings and ruby necklaces into
the murky green water and let them drift
away from your mind so someone
else can find them.

Give all your money to a charity
any charity
And just like that,
walk away.

Live in the streets
where rats are the size of racquetballs,
the flies are your leaders to food.
Thrive in a cardboard box that’s taped up
And covered by a tarp.

Listen to the croaks and groans
of your cardboard box as it snows
simply because you have nothing else but cold

Do this and I'll guarantee that you'll be poor.
I'll guarantee that you'll stink in writhing wrinkling clothing
and if you ever happen to be loaded again
extend your hand whether real or monetary
to those you friended in the ally. Show them
that you have the curse that gives hope.

Have you ever looked into an old man’s eyes
as he ****** himself in his broken wheelchair,
quivering from the cold under a shop canopy
and all you have to offer him is some carrot soup?

That sheepish smile is the worst, when it’s time to leave.
You’ve given him an old beanie, maybe a cup of coffee with no sugar.
What do you say? See you soon? Have a nice evening?
You’re disabled and sleeping in your own ***** tonight.

Perhaps you've heard the ramblings of a mentally-ill stranger
shouting loud nothings at passers-by; incoherent, confused;
He's emaciated, with an empty coffee cup in his withered hands
carrying but a single 2 pence piece to his estate.

Some of these chaps even leave their sandwiches to go rotten.
See, if it’s rotten, you’ll get sick,
and then you can’t be ignored
because your ***** is making the pavement stink.

That mentally ill fellow, he sits outside Tesco’s every night,
sitting up against a lamppost laden with stickers:
“Smash the Patriarchy”;
“No country for white men”.

The Women’s March goes straight past his sleeping bag;
this example of human detritus means nothing to them
but for the smell it produces and the rats it attracts;
I imagine it'd put me off my macchiato too.

Maybe you deserve it; your eyes are blue and your skin is white;
GUILTY AS CHARGED in London Town.
You're out there in winter-time at 02:06
and I don't know if we'll meet again.

Sorry I couldn’t do more, my friends.

I will never wish words, only my actions as all syllables
   eventually fade..   Take my coat and the few dollars
as actions are worth more than just singular words...
         sleep warm with worth more than thoughts..

Snow dust the sidewalks
People laugh as they walk
Towards the unknown
their warm breaths
fogging the air
Their hands
wrapped around a steaming cup
They are content.

He shivers.
Pulling the thin
scraps of cloth
closer to him.
Waiting for the sound.
That heavenly sound.

Across from him,
she sits,
still
moment before
her last breaths having
gone unnoticed by the crowd
except by him.
Not wanting to suffer
that same fate raises his voice

"Please spare some change?"
The endless lines
Repeated at each passerby
Some drop him a few dimes,
quarters occasionally,
loonies and toonies are scarce

But it's enough
by enough it means
Enough to buy some food
to last the day.

but it's not enough,
by not enough it means
it will not help him survive
the cold
harsh
days to come


Dec 15
HUGE snowstorm tears tree out of the ground!!
The headlines exclaim boldly,
The people read the news
As they pass yet another still body
on this winter morning.
"He's only sleeping"
They think as they pass,
It wasn't the first still body
the crowd had passed this morning
it wasn't the first body
covered in thin scraps of cloth

Did you know there are more than 500,000 homeless people in America?
A quarter of them children.
Boston has one of the highest homeless populations in this country.
1 in 8 Americans live on an income that put them at risk for hunger.
Do you know how hard it is out there? Do you know how easy it is to be homeless? And how people look at them with shameful eyes?
You're 47 and you just got fired from your job cause it's overstuffed you missed rent for two months, momma isn't gonna help you! You don't have any money in your savings because you had to pay off college loans and debt.
You're 19 and you get pregnant and you want the baby, you want to have this beautiful child. But your boyfriend leaves you and your parents won't accept it.
Life doesn't give a **** what your situation is, this world doesn't give a **** how you got homeless because if you're homeless you're seen as less than. Why are you seen as less than? I bet some of those people know more than you or I or he or she do. I bet they can offer you words that would blow your mind. And because they got fired, or made a mistake that they couldn't come back from we look at them and turn our heads as we walk by them, we donate money at Christmas to show we "cared but do we really?
Yesterday at my work we threw away 16 pounds of food waste and I seriously felt some type of pain ring through my body
Because I knew that could've fed ONE homeless person for weeks or multiple homeless people for the evening.
I just wanted to take it and stuff it into one of our **** salad bowls and go dish it out to anyone I saw who needed it.
Can you imagine not being able to eat for days because you can't even afford the $1.00 honey buns in the starz markets?
And people pretend they don't hear you when you ask them to help with food.
Why do we look at these people, who just want food, who just want warmth, and need a home, as if they're someone who ruined our country.
Rather then giving them the a look of embarrassment, give them a look of kindness.