The Corner is Cold and Empty

When I first saw him standing on the corner with his yellow dog I had to do a double take. He looked just like my brother who I lost a few years ago. Weeks went by and I would see him every day, standing on the same corner, his loyal dog at his feet, with his cardboard sign that said, "Homeless please help if you can." I would see people give him small bits of change. The man would nod, but yet never make eye contact with anyone.

Every day, same corner, same man, same yellow dog.

The past couple weeks he hasn't been on his corner. I am assuming that he got smart, headed out west or down south, a warmer climate. Maybe he lost his grip and ended up in a jail. I want to get this guys story. Just to satisfy my own curiosity. It's sad how someone comes to that place in life. You're forced to drop all pretense of pride, you're set up to be alternately looked upon with disdain or ignored all together. I know a lot of people will say, just to make themselves feel better, that that these people like living like this. It's hard to swallow that anyone would enjoy living in the streets in Kansas City.

How many of us walk by the empty corners and never even notice that there is a human being there.

My Own Prison

There is a song that was written by Scott Stapp called "My Own Prison". I find myself listening to it a lot lately.

Sometimes, even though I know in my heart that God is a forgiving God, I feel as if He isn't there for me. That for some reason, He is overlooking me, or punishing me for all the negative I have brought into this world through my hands.

The sad part of this is I know that it is a prison of my own creation, not of His. A prison not of cold walls of steel or stone, but one where I still feel as if I live in the shadow of something so heavy that I will never see daylight. A shadow that I have become so accustom to that I don't even notice the demons cluttering around me while I hunker down in the corner. I don't even flinch at the pain that I feel, or worse yet notice the pain that I seem to cause others.

I cry out to God so often, as the song says, seeking His decision.

But then I think, damn dude. It isn't His decision for me to stay in this shadow. It's mine. I've had it. I'm going to find that Lion that roars in this darkness. I'm going to yank the keys from his hands and free myself.

Allow myself to feel some emotion and show some emotion. Hold myself responsible for my actions, yet not let others cage me in with guilt of my past actions.

That's the only way to see the daylight. The only way to destroy what I have created.

That's the way out of my Own Prison.

Couple of Years On Me

Once upon a time there was two of us. My older brother, who seemed to be the "good son" and me, the "bad seed".

Everything I seem to do in life turns into the biggest cluster fuck that one has ever seen. At first I just was a shit. I didn't care about anyone or anything. I thought to myself, "what the fuck, you only live once." Besides, I have to keep up my end of the deal, be the bad seed, the one that nobody can count on. Life is just much easier that way. Live and let live. Don't count on anyone and don't be the one that they can count on. That way when I can't maintain everyone could just say, "ah that's just the way he is". Then they could wave their hand in the air on go on with their lives. I too could go on with mine, with little or no consequence, emotionally or any other way really. Reality was, the "good son", often paid the consequence for me.

I would bitch to my brother how I hated my life. I would get pissed because he always seemed to have his shit together. He would look at me and tell me that we weren't that different really. "I just have a few more years on you brother. That's all. Someday you will come into who you are. Let it be, just learn from your mistakes and move on. To hell with what the world thinks of you, but, never NOT give a shit about what you think about the world."

It's taken me a few more years to wrap my head around what he was trying to say to me. If I can change how I view the world around me, if I can look at the world with my heart instead of through the eyes and opinions of others, and actually give a shit about what's going on it in, then it is I who will change within. I will be a better man not because of my actions, but because I can see the world with my soul and do what I can to make it a better place. Give to the world, not take from it. Learn from my fuck ups, not do them over and over again.

Guess now I have a couple more years on you. The "good son".

Second, Third, Four Hundredth Chance

It's the day after Thanksgiving. The day that all of America gets together and sits around the table telling one another what they are thankful for. The steadfast tradition that somehow makes us all feel better about the shitty world that we live in.

I don't mean to sound so cynical. It just seems like the holidays are such a facade of what we perceive, or what we want others to perceive that our society is all about. This is the time of year that Americans seem to get all cuddly with one another, with the world, put on the mask of love and once again fold hands together. They pray to a higher power, that somehow, someway, all the evil and bad in the world will work itself out.

Will it work itself out? Does our higher power want to give this world, with all it's sin, yet ANOTHER chance to redeem itself. Or is that higher power tired of all our shit, all our hatred for one another, all our wars, all of our slaughtering of innocent life that He gives so freely and without any conditions set.

What even makes us think we are worthy of another chance?