Why is it
That whenever I want a cheeseburger in this town
I get a look of scorn?
Why is it
That whenever I walk into a Mickey D's
I get a look that tells me,
"Get the hell out of here, fucker, we don't want none of your kind!"
They say this with one look, and they don't even open their mouths.
Sometimes the look hurts more than the words themselves.
A small girl in a pink sweater with a bow on her head
Did not look at me with a look of scorn.
She looked at me with curiousity.
She looked at me with wonder in her eyes.
Her mother, now her mother looked at me with scorn in her eyes,
As if to say, "Get away, you stumbling alcoholic! Get away from my clean and beautiful pink-faced daughter, my precious baby doll, who is too young to know the shame of vagrancy and the overwhelming nature of poverty." As if with one touch, I could dirty them both.
But children think differently. There was no scorn hiding within the dark pupils of her black hole eyes,
Only questions.
I sometimes ask myself those same questions:
Who is this person with a tattered coat and vomit-stained pants who dares to walk into a Mickey D's with only three dollars and fifty nine cents in his pocket and smells like piss?
Who is this person who, only five years ago, had a beautiful woman hidden in the crevice of his elbow, snuggled against his shoulder, breathing softly and deeply while her dark butterfly eyelashes stayed closed and she dreamed of a future filled with Maggiano's and lavish Italian restaurants where they serve you crimson wine and the glasses clink?
Who is this person who lost that same woman to chlamydia after she committed suicide out of the shame and regret a woman only feels when she can never bear children again?
I didn't even know people could die of chlamydia.
Who is this same man, this same ragged, poor, homeless, piss-smelling man who had a job as a locksmith and who now has to stand outside while others lock their doors against him?
Who is this man with a scraggly itchy beard he can't shave 'cause he has no shaving razors,
With ugly shoes and uglier pants because he can't afford to buy anything more suitable to go job hunting,
With stacks of blankets he's forced to haul around because the Missions fill up and it's cold outside and all he wants is a real bed that's HIS, and he just wants it to feel warm and cozy like home,
With yellow teeth because marijuana was a big mistake,
With dirty fingernails to scratch at my itchy scalp and to rub my beard when I want to look intelligent,
With no hand sanitizer when I have to piss against a wall because no convenience store will let a homeless guy in to stink up their clinical white facilities?
I don't even know who this person is, who this same man is, anymore.
Five years can do a lot to you.
Five years can kill your girlfriend,
Cut you out of a job once the government decides it has no more money,
Leave you stranded on the streets because your mamma's dead and your old man never cared for you so you're on your own,
Leave you feeling so depressed and sorry for yourself that you just want to get high to make sure that happiness still exists in the world,
Giving you yellow teeth and making you seem like a crazy man with nothing to lose and everything to leave behind,
But I've got nothing to lose if I've got nothing anyway.
Five years can change a man in ways you'd never imagine.
I know I could have never imagined it.
Neither could that little girl in the pink sweater, who will probably never end up like me if she went to college and the economy picks up by then.
She and all them other people who run Mickey D's and chase me away may think they're better than me.
I just think there are lucky people in the world who never know the real meaning of homelessness,
But never realize that there are others like me who do.
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