Another Holiday Season is upon us..... another one spent on the streets, alone. Spending another Holiday Season in the park, with a stack of books. Thanksgiving was spent in the quiet park....My only company, aside from my furry and feathered friends, are the cops, harassing me for just being present. Never once have they questioned anyone else around me, "requesting" their ID's, then perpetually running their information, time and time and time again, for the zillionth time, just for being present. But they have zeroed in on me, for nearly 2 solid decades. Never once just letting me be. It isn't right. And then they wonder why those of us out here, have no respect for them. So, another Holiday Season is here, making this my 16th one to endure on the streets. Wondering why I bother. This is not a life...... but barely an existence.
My heart feels heavier in my chest. And the days become, or rather have already become, just one long season, where nothing changes, but then everything does. The endless days, and then endless nights, are nothing I look forward to, but rather, another day closer to this punishing life sentence finally coming to an end. Holidays are harder to deal with on the streets, only in the sense that not only is there no one to share them with, but every place is closed, making it more of a challenge to do anything, like clean up for the day, or change.
When life, your life, has no meaning or purpose, is there really a point in being present? When your life matters to no one, what is the point? You find yourself just going through the motions, where everyday mirrors the last, then the one before that, and after that.....Holidays mean absolutely nothing anymore. Just another day of enduring the streets, in the barest sense.
Becoming Citizens of Life, Residents of Nowhere..... the very moment you are forced to live your life, or the remainder thereof, on the streets. Where the protection under the law and justice are no longer in effect to you when you have no physical residence to call H O M E. You come to realize some truly unjust things about the "Protection under the Law and Justice for all its Citizens", when your life is conformed to the streets.
That protection doesn't exist or extend to you when those precious walls and roof are taken from you. And you find Justice is nothing but mere words, holding no substance. Nothing is taken seriously when you are on the streets; such as when you need to report an assault, theft, muggings....and the like. Reports are thrown away, charges dismissed or never filed to begin with, your integrity is always suspect, and flip remarks are directed right in your face with "what do you expect, putting yourself out there like that?". Regardless of how you came to be on the streets, such as through and by the illegal activities and actions of a despicable landlord, where you had no control over what happened.
Even when a respected person in the community with clout, takes you to file a report, you are booted from the room, so they can question your integrity. Only to toss out the report because of your given circumstance. Protection under the Law and Justice for all, becomes nothing more than a cruel joke when life is on the streets.
