The Worst Decade...

The Worst Decade….

More than halfway through nearly 2 decades on the streets, 

and these last few years have been the worst of my life. 

Along with all the physical stuff I have to contend with throughout my

 life due to the actions from others; the debilitating pain

 that coarses (intended spelling, as in rough, not fluid) through 

my body at every moment, the deep ache in my arms from the 

shoulders down to my fingers, the way my knees feel like they are

 being severed and continually butchered, the constant fluid build up

 and heavy swelling from just above my knees to the bottoms of my feet, 

which both legs and feet dent and impress upon with any and

 all contact with any material, or even leaning against a table leg, 

a bag or any other structure or material …leaves a deeply bruised 

feeling for days afterward, along with the indents into my legs that remains.... 

(and the perpetual feel of live wires covering my legs)...

Pitted edema, is what the medical community calls the deep swelling 

and fluid build up that is ever present, and prevents my knees from 

bending fully, that cause my legs to buckle and swing from side to 

side as I walk, not to mention all the rest I have to contend 

with every moment of every breath taken …

...now to add insult to injury... The constant deep burning through my chest,

 throat and stomach that feels like scalding liquid being poured down my throat continuously while at the same time, feeling like a flame thrower is being 

shot up from my stomach and then hot coals placed down my chest, and feels like gasoline is being poured non-stop down my throat followed by a lit match.

 Nothing has eased, or soothed the deep pain of the sharp burning, 

the intensity of which is so far off the charts. It started several 

years ago as a direct result of an employee not washing their hands after 

using the restroom and then coming out to prepare food.

I have experienced hundreds of bouts of food poisoning because of the

 ill prepared food by employees who choose not to wash their hands after 

using the restroom. It has happened so much and with such ferocious 

high frequency, it has left a permanent echo of always feeling like my

 insides will purge itself out, turning itself completely inside-out,

 and feeling the purging will erupt at the slightest movement (and has),

 always lingering and never fully leaving me in peace. It has tore up my 

system entirely. Never knowing if what I eat will stay down, or cause trouble.

 Food now, has to be very bland. The only food I have found that

 does not cause any issues, are bananas…. 

But even then, they have to be firm, not overly ripe.

The Wrong Path...

Since birth, my life has been all wrong. More and more of 

the bad has been infused in my life, coming my way with higher 

frequency. The list is growing and increasing, 

and coming closer together. The Universe and Life itself is

 screaming that my life is wrong, that the path I was sent down

 has been in the wrong direction,

 going the wrong way at every turn and bend in the road.

 All the physical things that have been going on with me,

 not only in my life (an over-abundance of assaults, both verbally 

and physically, being run down (quite literally) by people 

running lights and paying no mind to stop signs, accidents 

abounding of every kind (one on top of the other until the 

stones are too high to account for)

 but in my body, as well.

And yet, not once, have I ever been given direction elsewhere...

I have experienced the absolute worst of life…. Time and time and time again.

So, How do I go down a different road, moving in a different direction, 

when there is no support, no assistance of any kind that I have 

been able to find? How do I change course when I am repeatedly 

denied and refused the help I need? Where do I start? Life was 

never meant to be languished on the streets, but that is exactly 

where I have been forced to be for nearly 2 solid decades now. 

How do I find the Healing Path that will be the 

direction I am meant to be on?

So where is this invisible road that I was to take, but is nowhere

 to be seen?  How do I go about finding it? In some kind of parallel universe 

where the portal is hidden between platform 9 and 10.... accessing

 that 9 and 3/4 area has eluded me entirely.

Life....it becomes a habit that you are unable to break.

Yet, there has always been a gross disconnect in life... 
never part of it,but always a part from it.

Fallen by the wayside, time and again...when you are forced to

barely exist around the seams of society, life goes by the wayside,

passing you by and never once being offered a lift along the way.

A lifting hand, a hand UP, not a handout is what I need.

It is what everyone truly needs at one time or another.

But few, if any, ever take the time to offer that simple hand.

And that single hand pulling you up can make a world of difference.

So the direction becomes clearer to me the longer I am forced to be 

out here, and that is offering my hand to lift others' up, and making 

sure they are not going to have to endure the life I have had to.

 Sharing my experience with others, and that begins by helping 

those I come across in my path, along my journey living on the streets.

 Not the path I chose, but one that was chosen for me...

We all need and benefit from a helping hand, but no one benefits

 in any true sense when you are only offered hand-outs.

The direction Life is pushing me toward is starting my own nonprofit 

that offers the help and support that has been so readily denied me. 

Because only someone who has truly experienced life on the streets,

 can know what people living on the streets need, in every regard.

Those of us on the streets, become part of the

 landscape, enmeshed in Nature,

but invisible to Humanity.

The discards of human waste...