Other shoppers pull away
He knows he is dirty
From begging all day
He uses the cash
From the hot day's work
Not for food or necessities
But to buy a few quarts
He hates what he is
The way his life died
All that he’d dreamed of
And all of his pride
He’d lost it all
For all that he cared
A family and position
A life he revered
It didn’t take long
For it to evaporate
He could barely remember
When his life was not gray
So he takes the full bottles
And heads to the shelter
Another bed not his own
In this life’s helter skelter
He drinks the first bottle
So that he can sleep
To block out the memories
That plague him so deep
He knows not redemption
He has spiraled too far down
As he tosses the empty
Opens the second with a frown
He walks into the refuge
With the others, same as he
All outcasts and lonely
And with unanswered pleas
He thinks of his family
And has one last prayer
To look after and protect them
Since he is not there
He closes his eyes
For dreams that won’t come
From a life of devastation
A life that is numb
In the early dawn hours
The priest says a prayer
For the homeless, cold body
That is left laying there
Poetry by M.J.B. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
