Imagine Poverty

3/15/2008

Imagine Poverty

Imagine you’re not from California. You come from a place far away where the cost of living isn’t as high as your new residence. In this foreign place you encounter numerous tests of your courage, integrity, intelligence, spirituality, and life itself. You’re out here on a mission to prove something to everyone including yourself; that you will make it. Imagine being homeless without a place to piss. Not knowing when you’ll eat next. No bed no pillow and a blanket no rest. You smell bad because you can’t shower. Well at least until it rains again, but you have no soap. Plus you’re broke, been gave up hope, you found a pipe; need a light, looking for a smoke. About to shoot dope in your arms once you find that vein to try and take away from all of your pain. On the outside people called you crazy, said you’re lazy, yelled “get a job and stop asking for change b”. Continue to imagine that you have a sick mother, that’s back home, struggling with a debilitating disease who is your main support and reason for not giving up at what you came out here to do. You work with the mentally disabled, visually impaired, deaf, and mute patients only to realize how much we take the most precious things in life for granted. You wear a masked smile so people you encounter won’t notice how much pain you’re really going through. You continuously think about how life was for you when you were back in your comfort zone. In that zone you had fun, your own place to stay, your own car, and money wasn’t an issue. All you have now are big city dreams inside of a small town hope. You’ve lived on the streets, stayed with strangers you’ve met off of the subways, and currently everything that you own fits into 2 suitcases and 3 boxes inside of a 5 by 5 storage unit where you sleep. You no longer laugh at all the people you see pushing grocery karts with their whole lives in front of them, or of the other individuals that goes through garbage cans in search of food and recyclables that the ungrateful toss out. A lot of nights you missed the final bus to wherever your destination was so you had to walk over 20 miles on more than one occasion. Your feet have the dead skin on them as a reminder of your determination of not being a failure in everyone else’s eyes.

As for the definition of poverty: (noun) the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor; indigence. If you can imagine everything that was stated, then you’ll understand how we all are just a one way plane ticket, from our comfort zone to the good life, and arriving in poverty.