I am a street person

I am a street person. I may be a man or a woman. I could be a teenager or even a small child. I am 12; I am 20; I am 60 years old. My skin colour is black or white or brown. It makes no difference. You do not know me. You do not hear me.

Oh, you once felt sorry for me and came over to me with your Bible and your Jesus. Maybe you went home to your clean sheets and chicken dinners feeling better about yourself, but I felt only hate and bitterness. You see, I have heard your singing, but you have not heard my silence. You speak of love, but I am mothered by hate.

I live on concrete fields--I make my bed in the parkades and alleyways of the city. My blanket is woven of unrealized dreams and broken promises. I shiver in aloneness. I dress myself with what others cast off. I am ashamed. My daily bread comes from a needle and alcohol stunts the pain within me. I never cry, though. I steal without guilt. Violence and vandalism nurse my deformity.

I have seen your Bibles clutched in your minds but your hearts will not let them go. My appearance turns you away. You are disgusted and afraid. I am alone.

My mind, though dull, seeks recognition. Each day I look for you, but you do not come. As a child I awoke, afraid, hungry, and lonely, but you were not there. The darkness of the street engulfed me and I was nurtured by my mother, who gave me drugs so I would sleep without trembling.

Today I am still lonely, but it is a disguised and resentful loneliness. I do not feel pain like I used to. I walk the streets as though in a dream, wishing for death, longing for life. In my search for existence I hear the voice of compassion and I recognize the face of genuine love. Perhaps you have given of yourself to me and I have not responded. Don't be surprised. There is a lot about me that you don't know and could never understand.

Michelle Porter
(A reading done in the early 90's that I wrote for oral presentation.)