Scarcity

Cracked teeth

A red jersey

Orange pulp stuck in her teeth,

Juice dripping down her chin

Orange peels on the seat. 

“Don’t ever drink,” she says to me. 

“My brother was murdered and I can’t stop drinking.”

I gave her some chocolate that I was going to throw out. 

She said it was her birthday

And asked God to bless me. 

The destitute camped out underneath the overhang of the building. 

An old man 

A young woman. 

Plastic tarps set up for privacy. 

Stringy white hair. 

Tan, crusted skin. 

Pink gums and missing teeth. 

A toddler crying on the bus. 

A tattooed man offers his orange and granola bar. 

It’s rejected. 

Four kids. 

Utter chaos. 

This is Phoenix. 

There’s nothing glamorous here. 

It’s not about money, it’s not about rednecks. 

It’s about survival in the desert. 

Cold at night, 

Hot in summer. 

There is no such thing as a nicer place to be homeless. 

That day.

I felt right at home. 

I felt so comfortable. 

I felt so free. 

I felt so authentic. 

I was out of my bubble

My bubble of patio furniture, Mac computers, and organic food. 

I was out of my bubble of biking and climbing, 

I was in my bubble of pain and fear, poverty and vulnerability. 

This is humanity. 

This is real life. 

This is survival. 

This is what I have known in my life and research. 

Pain, poverty, survival, fear, hope. 

It’s not about material possessions or money. 

It’s about being real. 

Being real is

Accepting illness and insanity, 

Accepting difference and struggle, 

Accepting precarity and knowing death.