The Streets Are My Home

It's tough, ya know. Really tough to be on your own, all alone in the world. You never really get both eyes all the way shut when you sleep. There's never that sense of security no matter how many mental tricks you try. My moments of "rest" are elusive and ill timed, like when I'm at the clinic waiting my turn to see the nurse's familiar face with whom I have a good rapport. My eyes cry out to shut feeling a sense of structure at long last.

Rest of the time is hell. More and more upscale developments are moving in around downtown Dallas. Many ill-meaning yuppies are angry at the sight of us and to be approached for money is a fate worse than death for them. They've mounted social media campaigns to stomp us out like cockroaches. They don't want to know us. They certainly don't want to know we even exist. Deep down inside, you see, they know our fate will one day be their fate. Ouch!

Most homeless at the shelter aren't homeless. Or rather, they are people in need of temporary assistance. After a few scary weeks they are back on their feet hopefully back to whatever place they had before. Those are the houseless. I am the homeless. I have no place. I can't even imagine of having a place. (I wrote about this in one of my very first posts)

Head north passed the $2,500 a month apartments and you find Preston Hollow and University Park with a whole host of dazzling houses. As I drive by them I first am interested in the architecture then ask myself could I ever picture myself living there. Part of me thinks to live there would be a dream beyond all dreams. I could fill it with themes and designs to suit me and live happily ever after.

But that just doesn't ring true.

I've always felt very temporary about myself

I picture me in a place more temporary than a full blown house. I could see me on a weekday morn on my third floor patio sipping my coffee looking over uptown as workers scramble to their daily rut. But that would feel like a cage. I've had a lifetime of apartments and management's rules and regulations. I want my own space and nothing less can do. So that doesn't ring true, either.

I've thought about a house in the country breathing those wonderful smells and dreaming the world as I wish it to be. But can you imagine a grungy, bearded homeless man wandering over 60 acres trying to call that home? That also doesn't fit. Every scenario I see looking out the window as I ride around is wrong for me. That's a tad disconcerting.

It's only the streets that say "me". The streets are dirty and broken. They ask nothing of you nor give nothing. Your business is your own. No one can knock on your door to check alarms or whatever. No one can tax your real estate. No strings whatsoever. You have nothing to lose so there's less to fear. I see that man popping out of his Aston Martin Vantage heading into the W hotel and part of me screams with envy. But then I ask myself would I want to be the puppet to my possessions he is and the free air in my lungs cries out "No!"

I dearly would love to sleep. I know I could sleep for a year or two straight through if I ever got to stop running as this frying pan scalds my feet if I stay in one place too long. I won't be the first to die from that, I know. We're all looking for home. And yes, the streets are home to me because I most certainly cannot live with me.