all the broken shit

A month might just be an all time record of blog neglect suckiness. I'm not sure what else to say. I think about writing all the time and still the words don't flow.

I've been working on a project recently, one that's taken me back to my old haunts and given me a chance to catch up with some old friends from the streets. One guy from back in the day, he had a place but then he lost it and here he is again. He tells me that this time he's going hard core, if he has to be without a place to live he's doing it all the way and he's doing it in the streets. And he's writing a book about it too.

So he sits down and pulls out a journal and some pictures and starts to share and I listen and I look and he tells me his son passed away, a son who wasn't even grown. I reach over and grab his hand for a minute, in between all the jokes there's the pain and he looks at me and says make me god for 12 minutes and I'd fix everything. All the broken shit. Done.

Today I'm at the MD, one of those mixed use places where you can get your broken arm fixed get new glasses have a baby when I hear a guy behind where I'm sitting on his phone, he's agitated and he's talking louder, he doesn't know what he's going to do and he can't take it anymore but maybe he should shut up because people will think he's a terrorist. I can't help it, hearing that in a public place, I decide I gotta turn around and look, at the very least I need to see if he's thinking near term and so I look and and I see an average guy of an average age and I see sad. I see sad and I feel sad and I turn back around. Later when I'm leaving I see him again and this time he's lecturing his kid but in a way that sounds like there's all kinds of stuff beneath, stress and worry and fear and he's out of control. I want to reach out somehow but I come up zeros. I walk by.

Then I think of my friend again, I think of him outside and smiling, writing by streetlight and I think about what he said. Make me god for 12 minutes and I'll fix everything. All the broken shit. Done. And I wish it was that easy, we could all take turns and fix our little corner of everything and pass it on.

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