“I am kind” she said. This statement involved street risk-
but she felt urgent that I must know ‘something’
about what had happened to her.
I didn’t even know what day it was. Or the city,
the state of the world, but I seemed to be a dumb believer
in the idea that once a person begins talking to you
with great conviction-
regardless if they are a stranger,
you are indebted to this moment where words are being risked.
Where meaning and the transmission of meaning
are being entrusted to you.
I am constantly pulled apart at the seams
by the sight of people homeless-
without direction because every direction
is another nowhere.
I stand nowhere as if I am the one being beaten by these elements.
I care, and cross my caring to listen, to help,
though it does not help,
the culture of ‘moving on’ erases my unease-
to do one good thing- turned to shit by another,
by the whole society,
if it sounds loaded, how I use that word,
it might be because you have become comfortable
using it to describe other, non-urgent things.