Sally's Home (Less-Ness)

( Homeless woman, found dead under a bridge, thirty-something, in a large Southern town )

On Poverty, Homelessness, Struggle & Invisibility

America's Pride, My Own

Dialoguing the Pain

(For Sally #2)

Admitting dis-ease

A prerequisite to beginning the healing process

I am willing to admit

My methods, my belief foundation

Have been flawed from the git-go

Just because you believe something

Doesn’t make it so

Just because you have an abiding sense

That the world is just

Won’t make that paycheck 33% more

If you are black or a woman

And we say it’s the system, but fact is

individuals grant your pay in the final analysis,

someone signs off on the bottom line

Just because I’ve reached this point

where the gatekeepers will no longer let me in

To contribute, is not a reason I should

Be cast to the swine

In fact, is all the more reason

I should be let in since they’ve obviously lost their minds

So kickin me to the curve has a literal

Consequence

It has happened before, but not quite,

No never like this

There is something about middle age that

Makes one say, “you know what…

forget you and all of your BS ways.”

Says I would rather live on the street than

Endure one more “you are less than me”

Glance from a white woman on the other

End of the table or from a white or

Black man who wields the same mentality

Says its time my pride kicked in

No, I can no longer run to my family

For they don’t owe me food, they

Don’t owe me shelter

If mankind is one than my grief

Is the grief of everyman

These bouts of depression

Leaves me pondering the question

That Dr Joy Leary asks

“Where are the free clinics for the PTSS…

the post traumatic slave syndrome

I’m suffering from?”

And had she not named it

I would still be wondering at the source

Of my despondency

Here’s a woman (Dr Joy) whose

Very mention of her name or her PTSS work

Evokes such agitated

Response from the members of

Her own community

Yet no one has offered an alternative,

An adequate response to the injustices

Perpetrated against the dark,

the noble, the fertile, the strong.

Sure, we have religious teachings that tell

Me to forgive as a black person

And tells the whites to give up their

Sometimes unconscious and inherent

Sense of superiority,

but how do I get to forgiveness without some

Counseling to calm my spirit

Without some new textbooks

Filled with truths

instead of lies?

How do I eat canned sardines—and by the way

I enjoy sardines—

or canned salmon—

And by the way I love canned salmon,

Or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches—

And by the way—I don’t’ like PNB &J so much.

But how do I eat like that—on a good day—

And still believe that there is justice in the world?

You know I’ve always believed that the world

Was made up of opposites.

Like I realize that darkness does not really exist.

It is merely the absence of what does exist—light.

And that Poverty does not really exist.

It is merely the opposite

Of what does exist—abundance.

But this justice thing is a totally different animal.

Experience has taught that lack of justice exists, and that justice is the illusion, perhaps just thrown in to see who is paying attention, to see who is intelligent enough to recognize that it is the one exception to the rule of opposites.

I’ve left jobs where lack of justice--which is a real entity--has ruled. And I’ve come to realize I can and have tolerated many opposites for many years.

I’ve tolerated the non existence of poverty that showed up in my life like it was real.

I’ve watched the darkness of despair creep into the hearts of my people, of all people, some of whom knew this darkness to be just a fallacy of satan, but had to succumb to it anyway because it kept asserting itself as something real, something powerful and a force to be reckoned with.

But what I have not been able to tolerate for very long has been this “real” injustice,

This real “I don’t respect you or your intelligence. Never have, never will” attitude of many of the bosses I’ve served “under”.

Yes, I flee from injustice. I avoid it as one would a lion. I’ve been fleeing it all my life. Even before I gave it conscious acknowledgement, I’ve always known in the back of my mind, which is why you’ll see on many of my blogs, “this is ama and I gotta go, cause I’m running for my life.”

How sad a circumstance to always be running. My pattern—every two years I run. From this job to another—me always sniffing around for justice, but of course never finding it because, as I mentioned before, it is a non-entity. It will never be found in this world because it does not exists and to make it so goes against the laws of nature—i.e. would be a miracle.

If there were justice, it wouldn’t matter which school your daughter attended, for the quality of education for all would be consistent. This argument can be carried on to include racial inequality, gender inequalities, employment inequities and just about any other gd thing

I suspect it is why Leroi Jones, alias Amiri Baraka, felt a need to leave these shores.

It is why some sensitive spirits choose to leave this whole planet.

There is too much cognitive dissonance surrounding injustice for the thinking man to come to grips with. So some opt out. I think I’ll be optin out very soon, no longer subscribe to the “injustice daily” free ‘zine

Of course it’s a mystery why the Prophet says

“the best beloved of all things in my sight is justice…”

And then admonishes us to turn unto it.

How do we turn unto something that is not there? Or is this yet another test to

Separate the servants from the talkers?

And without this justice, how do we reconcile other statements

Where God’s Mouthpiece tells us to cleave unto

Righteousness. What exactly does that mean?

How can there be righteousness

Without justice?

These days I walk around without the ability

To chew on my left side. Ah..Poverty—

Which by the way does not exist—can leave you like that.

Money can buy teeth, but, alas, that begs the question.

But before I check out of my 500 square feet apartment and check into the suite at the corner of Homelessness and Despair, I wanted to put these questions to America:

Why won’t you apologize for your past injustices committed against several groups of people, including my own?

Why won’t you level the playing ground so that I can contribute, share in your riches and glory?

Why did you not learn what every mother knows to teach her children,

“Tim, share with your brother. You and he are from the self same stock, and you need each other for your own happiness, for your peace, for your own good.”

Sorry seems to be the hardest word.

America has decided it won’t admit its part in genocide, thus stifling any chance of

A bright and sustained future.

Pride and arrogance won’t let her utter those words.

My pride and arrogance now won’t let me keep running.

Today I stop running.

Today I shower and put on my finest and fanciest white terri cloth robe—

Yeah I know yours is silk and yours is better than mine –

But I put it on anyway.

It may be the last time I get to wear it, b/c I would just ruin it once out there on the streets.

Perhaps what I really need is a way to access a different street

In a different place with a different set