Sunday, August 31, 2008

I will never be homeless

I will never be homeless,
It won't happen to me.
I will never be homeless,
I'm doing so well, don't you see?
I have a good job, a nice house and a car,
I have everything I need to go far.
I am not like those Welfare bums,
To whom prosperity never comes.
You know, the ones who don't want to work,
Any kind of physical labour, they shirk.
All they want to do is drink,
Some are not clean, and they stink.
Then, I see a man, lying in the street,
A tattered coat around him and no shoes on his feet.
But, I sense that something is wrong,
That somehow, this man does not belong.
So, I decide to stop to say hello,
And ask him why he fell so low.
He once worked on a street called Bay,
Making good money every day.
Then, one day his job was gone.
He was told, "just go on home."
He soon just didn't care,
His purpose in life no longer there.
He lost his family, his home, and his car.
In just a few months, he fell so far.
So here he was, on the street,
With a tattered coat around him and no shoes on his feet.
Then I saw the lines on his face and the pain in his eyes,
I will never be homeless, will I?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

No, you will never be homeless so long as you are a somewhat decent person. Homeless people tend to be so because they are substance abusers and/or mentally ill and can not be sociable or even behave appropriately for any period of time. If you crashed all the way down to the lowest there is - no family, no friends, no money, shelter or belongings - then you would still find someplace to stay and ways to get back on your feet so long as you are a decent person.

Nah, I'm making all of that up. Yes, anybody can become homeless. Even family members tend to want to turn their heads when a burden is proposed to them, especially if they aren't doing too well themselves and hard times tend to fall on people the same due to the class system. So if you're upper lower class or lower middle class than odds are so is your family and if that is so then so is the probability that they are having a difficult time as well.

Four years ago my ex brother in law went homeless after 14 years of middle class employment. His major mistake was having a poor relationship with his sister, no close friends, a mother who could barely afford to live herself (who he never helped) and a job with no security (who exactly has job security, anyway?) and for all I know he could be dead right now.