Dear,

This is a poem I wrote to a homeless man I would always see and once stopped to give money to and then never saw again.

Dear homeless man on the street that night. I named you Greg. You’re short red hair, your kind eyes, and the scruff surrounding the lips you just know can crack the sweetest of smiles just said Greg to me. 

Where are you now? Did you have the baby I made up that your partner I made up was carrying? Was she beautiful? I say she cause… I made up that she would be a girl, you seemed like the kind of dad that would look great sporting a baby girl in your arms. Like the football you used to throw around with your two brothers I made up who were always a little too rough on you in the backyard of the house you grew up in. 

I looked for you after that night and since I never saw you again, I make up bright futures for you in my head. That you kneel down to your partners pregnant belly and talk to your baby as she kicks to the music you sing. I made up that you sing in this raspy beautiful voice and that someone heard you and now your playing gigs in South Carolina where I made up you were from. 

I need you to know that my standstill at that green light in the middle of the empty intersection was selfish. There is a quote I take with me everywhere I go, “What makes you happy is seeing someone smile because you put it there.” That’s why I stopped for you that night. Its unfair that you were put there, at this busy Miami intersection, to make me feel better about myself. What about you? What about the way you’re made to feel when you’re ignored by passing car after passing car.

“Everyone just drives past me like I’m some kind of b*****d.” you said to me. “I’m just trying to make it like everyone else.” you said to me. 

Why is it that in a country where we preach equality, freedom, liberty, we practice survival of the fittest. We throw each other under the bus from the youngest of ages. Standardized tests grading individuals on the general. I sleep in bed at night, who am I to sleep in a bed at night? A young kid who hasn’t even begun to work hard enough for her privileges, but pregnant mothers and war veterans who without I wouldn’t even have a foundation for my damn bed at night, and you, young hopeful men just trying to make it are kicked outside like a dog to it’s doghouse. We give dogs a doghouse but we don’t give our own species more than a place to unfold a cardboard box if they’re lucky. 

I still look for you Greg, but not on the streets. I pray you’re successful as I look for you around tall glass windowed sky scrapers around one PM when you’re just about ready for your lunch break.