America.....the Home of the Homeless

Forgotten on the Streets

Forgotten; that’s what happens to you when you are forced on to the streets, having to live your life by mere existence, while everyone else disregards you as a person in every sense of the word. Forgotten, mistreated, brushed off, ridiculed, criticized and ignored. Facing this every moment you find yourself in the presence of others. Taking its toll battering your soul, your sense of Self, which is diminished more and more the longer you are forced to stay out here, becomes nothing but a ghost that you can no longer feel the very essence of but glimpsing only in partial shadow from the corner of your vision, that disappears and vanishes if you look directly at it. Your word, your integrity, your very character always questioned and condemned without the roof to validate your existence in the very literal sense.

Time takes on a whole new meaning when you live on the streets, stretching out longer, becoming endless as days blend into weeks that turn into months and transform into years. Seasons blending into one long winter/summer, but the nights are an endless winter, feeling like you’re stuck in a perpetual deep freeze, regardless of the actual temperatures outside. Time slips away faster at times, while other times it seems to drag out and stretch forever-- Shadows giving up their secrets as the sun creeps into the sky higher and higher, then begin their whispering as the sun journeys below the ground, starting the cycle all over again.  

The physical challenges of living life on the streets are too numerous to list, and when you have to contend with endless physical pain every moment of your life... from the actions of others, makes that pull and draw of life that most feel, nonexistent in mine.  I have never once felt that love affair that most have with life.  Never once felt the joy it is supposed to bring.  

The empty gnawing through your stomach becomes your constant companion, growing heavier and more intense when all you have is water to drink, making the pain and pangs of an empty stomach much more pronounced. The connection with people becoming null and void and you can feel yourself slipping further and deeper into the bottomless pit, the vortex, of humanity’s waste --

One of the things you learn to do quickly, or be completely devoured, is growing extra thick skin to deal with life on the streets. You have to really learn to let it all go, which is very challenging, especially when the actions and behavior and attitudes coming your way all the time and from all directions is directed right at you.  Especially more so when not only are you homeless, but female and physically challenged, to boot, and move in a way that people don't like.  Sometimes it takes hold of your heart and squeezes like an iron vise, made immeasurably worse when it’s done by someone you care so much for.

I am so completely angry at this point in time.  Having spent nearly 2 solid decades forced to be on the streets, because the screwed up system in place to "help", has only compounded the problems, insisting you have to fill their requirements before assistance is given, and claim I do not qualify because I "do not meet the requirements".   I am so angry of having to contend with the absolute worst of humanity, of society, of this screwed up system that is ineffective, at best.  When you are forced to live your life outside interminably, you not only witness the perpetual underside of humanity, but fully experience it in every regard.  The gross mal-treatment, verbal abuse and physical assaults that are so common place against the homeless that no one notices how wrong it is and why the extreme violent misconduct of actions and behaviours toward those of us on the streets are condoned, and more often than not, actually encouraged..  Full fury and contempt directed at those of us on the streets just for the mere existence of our presence.  Wondering if this is why I was born-- Just to experience the ugliness of humanity in all its many forms.  Being treated so horribly.  What is the point then?  I am fed up with being denied my existence, unable to truly live, but denied access to life.  When your life is only (barely) permitted to be present around the periphery of life, but not allowed to be part of it, where is the meaning..... purpose?  Life on the streets is difficult enough to have to go through, but being cast to the wayside at every moment.  Where do you go when your not welcome where you are?  No matter where you are?  Is this what life is supposed to be about?  

When night time falls, our lives- for those of us on the bare streets, are all but forgotten as everyone who has that precious commodity called a home, scurries into its warm embrace; enveloping them as they step inside. Our lives discarded as they gather around the dining room or kitchen tables to enjoy a nice hot meal, sharing stories from their passing day, then curling into the warm folds of their comfortable beds, wrapping them in billowy comfort from head to foot, their heads cushioned in the clouds of pillows’ softness.

Simple luxuries so easily and readily taken for granted until that luxury is taken away and it becomes a rare and treasured gift, a special privilege, if and when, it is afforded to you. Like a real meal, ready access to a restroom, a bed....Hot running water: priceless jewels...

People insisting you’re not doing enough, not trying hard enough or you would have a roof over head and money coming in. This is only the case when you’re a drug addict or alcoholic, an illegal immigrant, or their brand of CrAzy, THEN, and ONLY then are you given anything in the way of housing and income, and very luxurious accommodations, at that!

No matter what you say, where you have gone, what you do, how many doors you get repeatedly slammed shut in your face-- they don’t want to hear this, much less even acknowledge it. They still INSIST I’m not DOING enough, just NOT trying hard enough. When you don't fit their Myopic minded views of how you are supposed to present yourself, what you are supposed to be doing and how you look when you are homeless, your life is cast off -- forgotten and erased.  A role that has never fit.

I invite them to follow me around for a day, a week, a month, or the endless years, and I’ll show them what I have to deal with and contend with daily. But, of course, they always refuse—Because then they would see the truth for themselves; and it’s much easier to judge and condemn for something they know nothing about and understand even less, than it is to open their eyes to the truth! So the blame is always put on me, it's my fault I'm out here, it's my fault I'm not receiving any assistance, it's my fault I don't have a home and a solid job, and so forth.  OK, I take full responsibility, but that certainly does not change anything when you are continually and repeatedly denied your very existence and told over and over that "you don't qualify".  Then please tell me how to qualify and get the help and assistance that I have been readily refused for nearly 2 solid decades of being forced to live on the streets.  The attitudes toward me really wear you out having to deal with people's ugliness day-in, day-out.

Instead of looking forward to another day, you tend to dread it's approach. Becoming discouraged from the continual ignorance, attitudes, and neglect from others, and the rejection from potential employers never giving you a chance. You wonder when things will finally change for the better. Staying positive as best you can becomes a constant challenge. But come morning, you somehow still find yourself breathing, and wondering how it's possible.