The Bowels of Life...

 

The Bowels of Life...

 

Life on the Street

 

 

Living on the streets... means living in the sewers of

the gutters of life. When you are forced out to the street,

it is literally being sent into the Bowels of life itself. 

 

No crueler punishment.

 

Life being turned upside down, and inside out, going from living

to barely existing, in the shadows, and becoming shadowy statues

that no longer exist in any meaningful way, where you are not

allowed to be where you are, no matter where you happen

to be. Your presence is “Illegal” and your criminal activity

is merely being visible. Where you are hard to miss,

but easy to ignore, as we are not seen as

Living, breathing, Feeling Beings.

 

Days lose their meaning and no longer has any

value, as every day looks and feels like all the rest,

While Your very life becomes an Intrusion.

 

You witness, experience, endure things no one should

as a direct result of being forced to live on the streets. 

Living on the streets, you quickly become an afterthought

that is Beside the point. Those moveable, shadowy icons...

shadow statues, where Learning how to live when you are not

allowed to BE anywhere.  You the learn the fine art of

Invisibility, becoming part of the Scenery, blending in so well,

that it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. 

 

Part of the Landscape, that was painted and sculpted

in place, losing your “Human” status when living on the street. 

For some reason, when you no longer have that Verifiable,

Proof of Living in a Residence, you are no longer seen or

Viewed as a Living, Breathing Human Being.

 

You literally cease to exist in the truest sense

when you no longer have those walls surrounding

you and the roof overhead. You lose your “Living”

status. Diminished, restricted, confining...

 

Invisibility has become my Specialty.

 

Collecting dust like a Shadow Box on the wall.

 

Yet, we are not to be seen or heard from.  You find yourself

searching for LIFE.... and how to find your way back inside of it,

and back inside.  But instead of finding your way back inside,

you find yourself sucked into a Black Hole that becomes

Vacuum Sealed that swallows you WHOLE.

 

You are blamed for things that have taken place, for what's

going on and happening or has happened... just being in the

vicinity is proof enough that we are to blame for the standing

discarded trash, the thefts, robberies, assaults, vandalism...

Discarded as waste, where the Human element

is completely removed.

 

You are repeatedly lied to by “Service Providers”, the police,

and organizations that are supposed to be there to help. 

Your integrity is always held suspect and questioned.

When anything happens to you and you report it, the

reports are “misfiled” and lost, discarded into the trash,

because after all... what do you expect “putting yourself out

here like that?” Yeah, like something I did, not something

I was forced into.  I did not choose to be out here,

 but have been forced to become a permanent resident

of the streets because of the illegal actions of a

despicable landlord, paying the price for his

illegal actions against me.

 

No one dreams of living on the streets, especially

not as a permanent resident, yet, those are the only dreams

I have now... living on the street because I have been out

here nearly half my life, and nearly a Quarter of a Century,

merely existing around the periphery of life itself.

On the exhaust fumes of Humanity.

 

You get sucked into the depths of the Black Hole

of the streets... Living on the streets takes a

tremendous toll on your body, heart, mind and soul...

in the most devastating ways that are literally

unimaginable, that is until you are living it and

experiencing every moment of it.

 

Living on the streets ages you decades.... long before

nature would. And does so, unsparingly. . I went from

being carded all the time, to automatically being given

“Senior Discounts” without knowing it until I received the

receipts and checked it.  It is one of the hazards of being

forced to live in a circumstance not of your choosing

and not having the rest or nutrition your body needs and

requires, but is readily deprived of. Everyone now assumes

I am a Senior Citizen, giving me 'Senior” discounts

automatically, never asking me if I am, yet continually

“carded” by the police just being present, minding my

own business and some jerk calls in on me for that

very fact, just being present and visible.

 

The challenge of finding restrooms to use...

of just taking care of essentials. Of finding food.

Safe places to stay through the night... is an

endless cycle that just loops and repeats, and

fully consumes every moment of your day. 

 

Being out in the elements every moment of the

day and all through the night, every day of the year

takes a tremendously hard toll on your body,

on your health, on your life and in all you do.

 

A permanent wardrobe is wrapped around you living on

the streets... but not of clothes. But one of Labels, categories,

classifications, etc. You are grouped as a whole that affects

everything you do and everywhere you go.  Living on the

streets colors everything you do. It consumes your life,

follows you in your dreams, while you live every moment of

your life on the Public's Movie Screen, where admission

is always free to the movie goers, at Our Expense.

Carrying the weight of Life, and your Life 

with you every step.

 

Your life and every facet of it becomes Public Domain. 

Where privacy has been completely erased in every

regard, no matter how private your business.  Everything,

absolutely Everything, you do is on the Public Movie

Screen of Life. Where nothing is off limits.

 

And your life is Swallowed Whole into and through

The Bowels of Life living on the streets.

A Community Of HOPE.. Birthday Blessings

 

 

A Community of Hope..

Birthday Dreams and Blessings...

As this is my 21^st Birthday outside, on the streets... Birthdays

are not Something I look forward to, much like Holidays on the

streets. And this birthday was no exception. But it has turned

into a month, and year, of blessings and gifts brought my way.

Birthday Notes...

Another Birthday Year on the Streets

Twenty-one Birthdays now outside. Twenty-first Birthday of life

on the streets. Not something that gives me cause to Celebrate.

Living on the streets is not the gift I would hope to receive,

and not one I would wish for.

But I have so much to be grateful for... so many Gifts of Love

brought to my life and to my heart, time and time again.

So many of the Community have reached out to offer support,

so many have shown they cared and that I Matter.

Especially after the Police Department Forced me to leave,

after giving me Permission to be where I was. The Community

stepped up to the Plate in a Huge way.

Most of this year has been on foot when the vehicle I

received as a Donation, that would at the very

least, finally give me a roof over my head, broke down,

leaving me stranded, quite literally, on the freeway.

But the Community rallied around me and helped

in ways I could never repay. They helped to restore

my mobility and get my vehicle running, once more.

It still has issues, but it is Running... and I can move it when

I need to, which allows me to take care of some personal business, be

able to get to some appointments, take care of needs and essentials,

for the most part. And that alone is a tremendous blessing

and something I am deeply grateful for.

Along with helping me so much with my vehicle, the community

has reached out even further with extending me offers

to house sit and pet sit while they are away for a few days,

here and there. Trusting me because of the way their dogs

respond to me. I met most, if not all of the community,

because of their dogs, who insisted on coming to say hi

to me. Animals are excellent people readers, and people

trust their pets' insticnts... and in turn, trust me as a result.

I don't take that lightly. And am deeply honored and grateful

for all the help I have received. I found out Angels are REAL,

and do exist. And these Angels presented themselves as a

Community. A Community of Love, Support, Healing...

And not only has the Community stepped up and offered so

much help, but other neighboring Police Departments found out

how I was treated by the one who forced me to leave and

offered refuge in their cities, giving me permission to stay

and be left alone. And the Community continues to

reach out to me.. Offering House Sits and Pet Sitting

opportunities with greater frequency and allowing me to park

in their driveways and in front of their Homes when the need arises

and the cops force me to leave for just being present. When I am

doing nothing wrong, not breaking any laws,

not harming anyone, just minding my own

business, usually reading or writing...

The Community has awakened the Beauty of who most

people are at their Core. People filled with Heart,People who care

and want to help. But that has not been my experience for most

of my residency on the streets. But thanks to this Community,

they have made this a Memorial Birthday year.

This Birthday, and year, is a Treasured Gift!

 

Life on the Streets... The New Way of Living

Life on the Streets... A New Way of Living

The way you live and how and in what capacity life is lived changes

completely when you are forced to live on the street. How you eat, bathe,

sleep... everything, is different. And you have to learn how to live without being

allowed to actually live. Your life no longer resembles life. You have to

re-learn how to live on every level. You have to learn a whole

new way of life and how to live. Everything about your life

changes and in all you do.

Sleep being continually disturbed by the super blinding white lights that

law enforcement shines and direct right in your face, directly in the eyes.

Being so cruelly and rudely awakened throughout the night for just

being present. It's hard enough getting any rest being on the

streets, and then disturbed further by the lights. Sleep deprivation

causes excessive health issues, and then having your vision damaged

from having your eyes blasted with super bright white glaring light

for decades has not only caused visual disturbances,

but has caused permanent damage to my vision.

Healing from anything takes much longer, when or if it happens

at all, because you have no place to just BE, where your body is

allowed the time and space to heal. Your body cannot and

does not receive the rest and nutrition it needs to be healthy.

You find yourself running on Fumes... that stretches into

DECADES. Eating is very sporadic, at best, non-existent,

at worst. Life on the streets is unsustainable to Health and

Wellbeing. And the fact that those of us forced to live on the

streets are exposed to absolutely Everything, our bodies need

the defenses up strong, but when your body is missing the key

ingredients it needs to Function properly and fight off

all the viruses and bad bacteria all around, it takes an

excessively hard toll on your entire being. Because

Survival is the gear your body lives in, every

moment of the day and all through the night.

Life on the streets is nothing at all compared to life as most people

experience it. There is nothing similar, nothing familiar, nothing comfortable.

It's like living and being on an Alien planet, everything is Foreign and

you have to learn how to live in a completely different capacity,

in a strange, inhospitable environment. Life on the streets

is an entirely new way of living, which isn't living

in any sense of the word, but rather barely existing

around the periphery of Life...

of Humanity.

There is no direction or path to follow. The rules change continuously

without warning, and each day and night are at once the same and

completely different. Never knowing what to expect or what will happen.

We are the shadowy figures, that have turned into Living Statutes and Icons...

The protection of a Home is no longer part of life, your life, when you

live on the streets. Privacy is completely erased from your life in every regard.

Becoming the most watched Movie showing at the Public's Cinema,

where admission to the Public is always Free, at our expense. Your life is

stripped bare, leaving you fully exposed and in the open in ways you could

never imagine. Living completely Raw... And learning the Alien

language of living on the streets.

Living on the streets you find you are no longer considered a living,

feeling Human Being, but rather seen, and more often than not treated,

like trash, debris and sewage remnants... And Life no longer has the

feeling of Life. Life becomes MOOT, and every moment turns into Survival,

instead of Planning and Scheduling, you find yourself searching

for safety, searching for food, searching for help, searching

for protection and a safe place to just BE. A place to Rest, a

place to Heal, a place to be able to LIVE LIFE.

Days lose meaning, Life has no purpose, no direction, no Value...

Every day starts to feel just like the ones before it, and before that,

and before that. Life takes on an immediacy that it never had before.

Always present and always on guard, every moment of the day and

all through the night. You become witness to what no one should.

You see things, experience things that are not meant to be seen,

experienced and witnessed yet becomes common place.

Witnessing and experiencing “Life” on every level,

The cruel undersides of Humanity...

the Needs, the Desperation, the Anger, the Violence,

the Mentally Unbalanced and highly Unstable.

You learn to see without seeing... you learn to hear without hearing.

Because there is no one around to help. Protection is only

afforded to those who have the luxury of a Real home.

You learn to stop reaching out. You learn to stop caring.

Overpass Living

Overpass Lives...

Life on the Streets

Mud Embankments, weather in all extreme, gorging 
insects, hunger...These are just a few of things that life turns 
into when you are forced to live, or rather merely exist, on the 
outer outskirts of life itself. Living in a Subculture of 
existence. Into a Dimension all its own.

Survival mode becomes the ever-present setting of all you 
do. It becomes the Default setting. A setting that you 
cannot turn off. Life has never come easily to me. 
 I have never mastered the cadence or nuances, aside from 
that of Nature. Life remains elusive and out of reach. 
A life of Influence, of Impact, of Meaning, of Purpose... 
a Life that Matters, in the truest sense, happen 
only in Dreams, if even then.

Labels and erroneous assumptions mark your passing

just for being in a circumstance not of your choosing.

Judged immediately for just being present. Being assigned

a classification solely based on your circumstance,

put into a specific character form in a role that has been...

and continues to be, grossly ill-fitted and ill-fitting.

Cast into a role that was never meant to be.

But one that I have been forced into.

Forced and boxed into a Stereotype of

Characterization. And into a Journey through

the bowels of hell....A Journey I never wanted to take.

That is what life on the streets is like.

And living on the streets, people believe that you

are now the repository for all their castoffs and

discards they are looking to relieve themselves of,

that have long since lost there usefulness. We are not

the drop off stations for their unwanted junk. But

People come to the conclusion that once we are living

without a home, that gives them instant permission for us

to immediately become there dumping ground repository 
station for all their unwelcome, unwanted

junk, trash and debris. They think and believe that

just because our circumstances have changed,

that we are there just for them to unload

everything on us, Burdening us with their trash.

The Stereotypical version of the Homeless is rarely the

ACTUAL version of what being Homeless truly is.

Over-passed, Overlooked....but the depiction of what a

Homeless person is supposed to be like is all wrong, and

mis-counted when they do their “Census” surveys,

because we do not look the part, so we are egregiously

under-counted, again and again. But the Services in

place are not for the people living on the streets, it is to

cover the overhead, the payroll, and reams of paper for

the forms for all these agencies purported to be there to

help us, when those of us outside are not the ones who

benefit from the funding these places receive. It is the

PROGRAMS who benefit at our expense.

So nature continues to embrace me when Life has all but

forgotten all about me. Animals, my trusted friends

and deepest confidants, share my days and nights.

Embracing me in a way people, and LIFE, never has.

Listening to Nature and her Orchestra nourishes

my heart, while filling an emptiness I didn't

realize was even there.

Ever forget where you left something; keys, phone, coffee...

or forgot what something feels like; the texture of grass,

fresh fruit, a shower or a bed? I can no longer recall or remember

what a hot shower feels like, or what any shower feels like,

or what it feels like to clean up in anything but icy

cold water, regardless of the temperature, or

what it feels like to sleep in bed, undisturbed.

Likely lose the sense of what it is like to be a living,

breathing human being, as the longer I am forced to the

edges of the merest existence, the sentience part of my being is

loosening its grip, lessening more and more, minute by minute,

draining the very life out of me, going from a living, feeling,

breathing being to a dry, desert lanscape of existence.

Birthday Dreams...

Birthday Dreams…

My birthday dream, wish, hope and prayer for today….

Is something I will never have in my life…

My 17^th birthday spent on the streets…. Coming into my 18^th Anniversary of

having to live on the streets, and heading into my 19^th Holiday Season 

without a home. People have been born and already completed 

high school in the lifetimes I have been forced to live life on the streets.

Not a place anyone should have to spend their lives,

much less their birthdays. Or any Holidays, for that matter.

Being cast to the side, sidelined from the mainstreams of life.

A day that really should never have come about, in any sense of 

the word.  Life takes cruel turns and sharp veers off the roads…..

and drops you from any semblance that life once held.

I never imagined that life, my life, would be halted indefinitely, 

forced to live on the streets that all started by and through the 

illegal actions of a landlord, and perpetuated by the cruel system 

that claims to offer their so-called “help”, but only if you fit the 

extremely narrow confines of the requirements; 

have the life destroying habits of 

- cigarettes, 

- alcohol,

- chemical dependencies,

- or have dependent children,

- be an illegal immigrant,

- or be a senior citizen.

When you are clean, nothing in the form of any assistance exists.

My life being removed right before my very eyes….

My Birthday Wish…. My Birthday Hope….My Birthday Prayer…

is to feel amazing, be pain free, and live in the privacy of my own home.

Have the privacy to use a real bathroom for all I need to do, instead of 

being on full display every moment of the day and all through the night…

have a real kitchen to cook, prepare and store foods,

have a real bed to sleep in and finally get the rest my body has been

deprived of for decades. And just BE without having the cops

called on me for just being present, or being harassed

for not having a home to go to.

Decades of my life have been removed and discarded.

Those years cannot be restored or replaced.

And not ones I want to remember.

So Happy Birthday to me, again……

Another one without a home and alone.

A life that is becoming more wasted and withered with

each passing moment having to spend it outside.

Life atrophying with each breath…like a decaying residue.

Happy Birthday!!!