Hurting people are scared people… huddled in cold bathrooms, lying on concrete floors with leaking toilets getting their clothes wet through those drunken nights… through those drunken nights you see broken people passed out from worries too heavy to get high, too numerous to escape… how can you be cornered in an alley in the middle of the street??? how can you be trapped in a box when you are sleeping on a bench at a park???
Cigarette teeth, smile, yellow… and black where they meet the gum-line. Loose lips, spill stories, express gratitude and spew awful words that express the death that is all around like abandoned buildings, old friends died in those dead buildings, mysteries… cracked foundations… in buildings, in minds, in hearts, in the street… in the street flowers grow in cracks… cut down by cars driving by too fast to notice the beauty smashed on their tires.
Scared people are tired people… sleep comes slowly when stars shine in your face like constant reminders of unmet expectations… hunger hurts… and disappearing hurts too… faces with no names drift by, people with no identity, no soul, no heart, no feeling, no kind words, no love, no peace, no grace, no mercy… stare at you… judge you… leave without speaking, leave without noticing the empty stomach, the empty hands stretched out to the cloudy sky, the rain…
Miserable beauty… roses trampled by boot clad feet… wait here a little bit longer… wait here for the sun… wait here…
The other day I walked past a Vodafone shop in the City Centre. It was the middle of the day and crowds were bussing past this homeless guy who was leaning against the wall sobbing his eyes out. I mean really sobbing, tears and all.
You could tell people were noticing him, but as I approached I realised no one was stopping. Steven, the dude, was maybe mid-thirties and well skinny. After I quieted him down I was surprised at how well-spoken and well-mannered he was.
He explained that he couldn’t raise enough money to sleep in the shelter for the past few nights, and that it wasn’t looking good for tonight either. He had been beaten up the previous night and robbed of his coat and tent. He had cuts across his face where he had been beaten with a bottle.
I didn’t have any money and I didn’t think the misses would appreciate him sleeping in our bed with us, so I just bought a sandwich on credit for him. He was more thankful than I’ve ever seen anybody. I told him it was nothing– that I wished I could do more, and I really was surprised at his gratitude.
But the thing that shocked me was not Steven and his horribly broken state– that much I’ve learned to expect. But it was the fact that I was so naturally inclined to not want to get involved. I should have passed by like everyone else was doing, and I wonder if the only thing that really made me stop was that if I hadn’t, I KNEW I wouldn’t have been able to sleep that night.
It got me thinking about Western culture, people in general. How we’ve got our tidy little boundaries and everyone’s so good at reading between the lines. Our societies are based upon hundreds of unwritten laws that ultimately govern our middle-class behaviour and keep things ‘easy’.
It was a real challenge that I can’t seem to shake.
i totally agree with you… homelessness, or poverty for that matter, is hard for anyone to relate too… i believe that the only real way to fight it is through direct relationship and time… we aren’t prepared to give either one of those things in western society. sadly, i don’t think we are prepared to those things to even our closest friends and relatives. we are so isolated.