To the Homeless Man Around the Corner

We're not so different,  you and I.

That maybe insensitive of me to say but we are both struggling to come out of this with some finesse, some morsel of evidence that our efforts weren't for naught.

Everyday at 7 PM I observe you, and you are always huddled in that same little spot in front of the Dunkin Donuts. The 13th street, Dunkin Donuts. The 13th and Juniper, Dunkin Donuts. The gay, loud, and proud, Dunkin Donuts.  You always exude just the right amount of vulnerability, enough that I can feel something tug at my heart and for a moment, I want to run to you, give you whatever you ask for. But then the devil/economist on my shoulder reminds me that you'd probably ask for drugs or something totally unconstructive, like crayons and paper clips. As I walk by you, you shiver, rubbing your hands against each other for warmth on this 80 degree humid summer night. And right then I knew that your frigidity had zero correlation to the weather. Your physical condition is an emanation of the human condition, or the lack thereof. Your presence is certainly hard to miss by the clumps of pedestrians, yet at best it incites fleeting sympathy and at worst, disgust. I wonder if each of them are having the same thought process as mine, down to the uncannily similar tiny economist sitting on the right shoulder, whispering a verbatim rationale. 

But like good instruments of logic, we heeded our shoulder economists. Reaching out would cost too much. More than we could give. Plus you would want more, or you would put it to ill use. An excuse, a lie, a hop, and a skip away lay our typical Wednesday night routines. Waiting with promises of interminable comforts and immortality. As if life would fall into line and succumb under our whips of fabricated order and structure. Before returning to my overly scheduled Wed arrangements, I try to pause and take this in. The thought of ceasing to exist gives me sick-chills. Realizing this, I yearned for a loved one, and fuck did I crave wings. 

The shoulder economist gives one of my strings a tug, and I feel my feet start to hit the pavement again. "You're late," a voice slices clean through my thoughts. But it didn't wipe the blade, because out of the two of us, the clearly deranged homeless man and I, I wondered who had got it right. And as far as my cold bones could tell there was nothing wrong with asking for crayons and paper clips. 

Spill

I miss you. 

a lot.

I had to tell somebody. 

But you know.