My Day of Reality

It’s said we all have a purpose in life,

That we all have choices,

Killed though by paranoid voices.

You waste away and ignore your uniqueness,

Subjected to the hard substances.

Daily…Night in and out,

Life appears to wither away, unaware of the filth of their “home”.

Image as vivid as a clear sky.

Three people nestled in a rat’s corner,

Around, walling them are smears of something black…

On the right, on a pathetic imitation of a single “bed”, sprawled and coiled, two more stiff bodies lay.

Is that all there is to it,

A horrid, small room. In a dilapitated building with smashed walls and a chocking stench?

All I get are eyes. Junkie eyes.

Eyes that do not know where or when their next fix will be.

A soul living behind these eyes has long died.

One…appeared to have been untouched by water and soap since birth.

Little popcorn like hair screamed filth from the million pieces of dirt in it.

Sitting and I guess soaking the sun,  his clothes’ colours are now unrecognisable, one shoe with no sole.

Yet he sits…waiting for the next fix.

I feel out-of-place yet comfortable,

Surrounded by the grip of addicts,

They’ve rotted and live for yet another fix…

Dirty thick fingers scooping their drug equipment’s, for another fix.

Another… had a chilled demeanour and appeared composed.

Squashed in a dried-up wax corner,

Smokes and inhales…sit back and stares into nothing, rests his head on the stained brick-wall.

Is that it? Really has life been so cruel?

How do you get to this point? When did it get so bad?

Crystal clear are the bits of brown plastics strewn on the messy floor.

A sick display of all their previous hits.

Again… they zone out into nothing.

I loudly think: “These people are human beings!”

Homeless and isolated from reality.

They know too well of struggles,

They know too much about addictions.

That for them it’s a sad existence.

A blessing is probably something they forgot of,

A good deed is foreign to their abandoned hearts.

Out-look was torn apart,

Ripped to shreds from the sight of their daily routine…cravings visible in their sickly faces.

Can’t fathom all that I saw. It’s messed up, a pinch of how others live. How they survive.

Daily slaves to insane poverty, do they dream, vision happiness.

Stamped, burned on my memory’s wall.

The stench of hopelessness.

Nothing appears better or spacious for change.

They toss and wither away in what has turned out as “life” for them.

Their freedom has gone up in the smoke that engulfs their so-called room.

Heavy gloom. Seems like it’s all not new.

A foreign and shocking view. Yet it’s what they relish in and spend their limitless time seeing…doing.

Are they the worst out there?

Has anyone offered them bread, a better life, love?

Do their taste-buds recognise the drug only?

Have their lungs collapsed and only appreciate their drug?

Here we are. Sitting in cosy surroundings.

Living with hill-high complaints, rebelling.

There they are. Engulfed in a life of filth. Suffocating in their matchbox home and given up on a better chance at life. Definitely rough. Too rough.

As I sit there…taking in this disturbing world. I realise I am the only girl in this bustle of chilling beggars, dealers and possible thieves and hobos…obeying their demons to rust and rot away because of their addiction.

An image never to be forgotten. EVER. Can still see their “yard” of smelly strange heaps of rubbish, possibly mixed with faeces and all sorts of garbage.

Little drug wrappers are lifted off the ground by a random breeze…

At that time, a thought passes.

“Isn’t that a poor being sleeping in the corner of the room, getting tortured by the dusty breeze?”

I’m left with a scarred memory, mind.

A lot of questions roam and wonder if any of us are ever satisfied, thankful…

Grateful for all things we’d like to think we own.

Many can’t imagine such a life,

So busy concerned with nothing, clearly side-lining their blessings.

Witnessing the pits of filth called “My Home”. It’s as if they say “Welcome and relax. Just let me have a fix while you make yourself comfortable. Don’t mind the smell of old urine and worn out shoes, feel at home.”

A constant rewind and play of the same sick routine of getting a fix, wandering around like zombies gathering in aimless conversations and fixing up another hit.

Smother in the gross air and breathe in the off-smell piercing the nostrils.

Somehow…I get used to it. The filth that surrounds me.

We complain of zero yet these hobos have zero but keep killing themselves with the injustice they’ve landed in. The grip of their demons.

This is one day I will not change nor take back. It’s gripped me tightly.

Time to leave. They wave, I wave, throwing them a sad smile. And…without wasting a minute, they go back to gather again for yet another fix.

26 July 2010