Skip to main content

The Hardness of The Homeless

By
This was written by me while I was homeless in Seattle sometime in 2015. At the time of writing, I was staying in the hospital, all hopped up on drugs because I was detoxing from alcohol and going through withdrawals. There are many errors within, yet the message remains the same. It will forever be etched in my memory and provided a solid foundation which sparked my newfound love of writing.


The Hardness of The Homeless

Some of you live in big cities, some of you don't. But some of the cruelty and pure ignorance of the people that I see bites me to the bones. It can be simple kicking of a pigeon (who are quite annoying, I know) just trying to do their thing, to passing someone who is just crashed out in the middle of the sidewalk, not stopping to see if they’re ok.  Now I know in downtown King County alone we have 10,007 homeless on the streets.  I am part of that number.  Yes, some nights I sleep in parks or under overpasses, getting my stuff stolen and beaten up for the little that I have.  Getting wet under those damn wool blankets that are made of who knows what.  You've all seen them.  Putting cardboard down just so my ass isn't bruised in the morning.  ‘Why not go to a shelter,’ you say?  They are full.  There’s not enough. And the ones I do try to get into cost about 5$ a day because they are mostly for people in some sort of program.  ‘Get into a program’, you say.  Waitlists are shitlists.  Some do what they can, going to WorkSource or selling papers on the corners, but even then people just look at them like pieces of spent meat. 
I’ve lived in downtown Seattle long enough to tell who really deserves a dollar and who is just going to go straight to use that same dollar for crack, but it's still a hard thing to see because I live that life.  I've been one to hold my hand out and to be constantly rejected and sneered at. I get what I can, when I can, doing odd jobs here and there and some general labor.  Even returning stolen goods for gift cards for people, only to turn them in at a pawn shop for cash, but the constant search for a dollar just to eat or sleep somewhere is a struggle I never saw myself growing up to face.  
Job applications are another thing.  3 time felon, 3 misdemeanors, no phone, no address, only one good reference from FareStart.  I got skills, but I know I go to the bottom of the application stack.  It's a hole that I’ve never been so deep in, but I have faith in God that He will reach his hand in and let me out and give me another chance.  Seattle is a huge city of chance, and I know that I’ll eventually have many, I just gotta do the work to find them.
As for the homeless, yeah it's an epidemic, and it’ll only get worse.  Fuck the walking dead (which is all we seem to be), soon you'll just hear clanging cans and hands reaching out for you wherever you go.  All that moaning and shuffling feet from people who eventually just lean over and nod out.  Who knows what to do… I know I’m gonna do my part though.   Look to God, do the work, and persevere.


Sorry for any spelling and grammatical errors.  I'm in the hospital. I had nowhere to go and it's cold outside. It’s the only option these days.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Robin Red - Chapter 3

By
Chapter 3 I don’t tell my brother about my date but leave the restaurant right on time to go home and get changed. On the way to the hotel where Eric is staying, something feels off. My brother’s words have more of an impact than I could have expected and begin to weigh down on me heavily. He had never completely cleared up what he was trying to get at, but I get the idea that his thoughts went deeper than his words. Now, this feeling in my gut can either be the clams I’d eaten or just intuition talking, with both telling me to turn around and go back home. What I really want is Bill, not this Eric character, but Bill and I were incomplete. There is a crack in our foundation that threatens to crumble what we have built if I push too hard and too fast. I need to solidify our base, and for that, I suppose people like Eric come in handy. I’ll do anything to make myself feel complete. I arrive on time, nervous yet eager to get it over with. I wear the same outfit on all of my fi
Post a Comment
Read more

Icepick

By
Some recent friends of mine have been posting memories from their past, so I decided to type out an old writing from my prison book. I’ve been slowly transferring all of them to electronic format, but I’m definitely not getting them out as quickly as I would like. Good friends of mine know about my memory issues, and writing helps me remember, so here’s one of the few sober memories that I’ve been able to retain. I know it’s a little long, and that this generation only has the attention span akin to gnats and only like to read shorthand, emojis, and memes, but bear with me. More to come. Icepick – Written 6/11/16             It was the summer of 2010, I believe, and a part of me wishes that I could call it a simpler time. I lived at a place called “Madhouse,” and for anonymity purposes, we’ll just keep it at that. Why is it called Madhouse? Because the place is a fucking madhouse—don’t ask stupid questions. In actuality, it is a series of houses, and I was lucky enough to l
Post a Comment
Read more

Here, Have an Egg

By
Ohh the anxiety-ridden, all-knowing teenager  years. This is one of the first writings of a memory I wrote years ago.  Here, Have an Egg – Written 5/21/15             At the very beginning of my rebellious days as a teenager, one of the first acts of proving my solitude and the transition into manhood was learning to sneak out of the house, successfully. I was well into my first year of high school and my girlfriend at the time—let’s call her Liz—yearned to partake with me in this mischievous task so that we could both “hang out” more intimately. Not seeing any other way around it, and being the eager fifteen year old that I was, I succumbed to my pubescent urges and complied.             My parents were three years divorced, and at the time, lived in the same city still so that it would make it easier for my brother and I to travel back and forth from each of their houses week by week. My brother never seemed to mind it so much, mostly because he could drive, which in turn
Post a Comment
Read more