Obscenity

getting off the d-train one morning @ the 125th st. nicholas stop & walking toward the soup kitchen where i was going to work that day i saw a young girl of maybe 6, 7 or 8 (i’m not good with age) sleeping underneath a black garbage bag--- she was sleeping outside the soup kitchen, no doubt, waiting for it to open--- & when i had crossed the street completely she rustled and got up from where she had been laying and moved out from in front of the establishment whose large gates were still drawn down & locked. what can there be said about this image that would make it any more clear in your mind? when she was walking quickly away i wondered where she was going & what would become of her---like any person with an ounce of compassion in them would--- still, i felt as ineffectual as a doorstop that won’t keep a door open. because when you don’t have money yourself to pay your own rent & you are living in an american city where you walk past people who have been forgotten or ignored or worse yet, they are being pushed away, out from in front of stores on 5th avenue & the like you are crushed by the weight of hopelessness--- when you understand that there isn’t enough that one person can possibly do--- & no matter how much your heart could bleed you are still just one person--- and in a manner of speaking, you become just another component in a failed system in a failed city that perpetuates its cruel reality in a failed country that has left nothing to the imagination when it comes to neglect. this vulgar truth more profane than anything your ugly mouth could ever muster smacks you in the face as if someone blindsided you with a baseball bat & like a domino falling---about to hit the next & then follow, colliding, one after the other--- you might find yourself sick to death of the obscenity of it all--- wanting to burn it all down & to start over.