Philly Plain Dealer

(inspired by conversations I have had with unhoused encampment residents)

You don’t sleep on the dirty city streets

Without a tent.

Unless the streets department has taken your tent

And thrown it in the trash

Along with your papers, and ID, and money, and medication.

And in the trash collecting, looked at you in disdain

And called what they were doing ‘a SWEEP.’

And you knew they considered YOU the TRASH.

You don’t sleep on busy sidewalks.

Unless you have tried sleeping in public parks,

and abandoned buildings,

or in cars or trains,

or airport terminals,

and police have SWEPT you from these places

and you know they considered YOU the TRASH.

You don’t sleep in public parks

Or abandoned buildings

Or in cars

Or trains

Or airport terminals

Unless there are no available shelter beds,

Or the available shelters are unsafe,

Or the shelters have blacklisted you for reporting the rape you endured within them.

Or the shelters have a no pet policy, and your canine is not a pet, but your only companion.

You don’t sleep in public parks

unless the family you have cultivated in these public spaces

Is more family than your own flesh and blood.

You don’t sleep in a homeless shelter

Unless you have no home,

Or are escaping domestic abuse,

Or have been cut off from family,

Or you family lacks resources to feed and shelter another body.

You don’t sleep in a homeless shelter

Unless you lost your income,

Or missed a rent payment

Or had a medical emergency

Or could not pass the credit check needed to sublet a room.

You don’t sleep in a homeless shelter

Unless you were evicted by the slumlord who took your money without a lease agreement and threw you to the streets when he sold your home to a retired couple from the suburbs who heard the housing market is hot.

You still return to the shelter

Night after night

To the hard cold mat on the floor

Next to the man who stays up at night screaming

And your belongings have been stolen

And the shelter staff closed their eyes

When you are attacked in the shower

For taking too long.

Despite it being your first shower

In days.

You return

maybe because the shelter is softer

than fingers frozen by frostbite.

You don’t panhandle

Unless panhandling is what you need to survive

Knowing the looks

And insults

And the

Get a job

You dirty bum

The rain and snow and heat

Heat so intense it could burn a kingdom to the ground

And snow so cold

It takes your breath in an instant

And your toes and fingers over time.

Maybe the abuse by passing pedestrians

And the police harassment

The citations and fines

Is better than the alternative.

You don’t fall asleep in public,

Your possessions as a pillow

Your head protecting them from theft.

You don’t fall asleep in public

Unless there is nowhere private for you to go

such as a house,

or a homeless shelter.

No one leaves home unless

there is no home

or home is a wound.

Or a broke-down car.

no one wants to be handcuffed

pitied

sleeping on concrete

unshowered for days

or months.

Kicked,

Spit at.

Recorded on the camera phone

Of the boy who works in the corner store

So he could share it on his Facebook page

for all the world to see your shame.

The boy with the camera phone

Sees you as other

As inhuman

As trash

But really

You are him.

He is you.

And that frightens him more than his student loan debt.

Because you remind him

Of what he could be

With one missed paycheck

When all is stripped down.

When all pretense is gone.

So they sweep

And you knew they considered YOU the TRASH.