Welcome Home

Welcome, Home!

This world is a cold place although not as numbing as the existence surrounding me.

There's a television in the shiny window, a man speaking of the promised land.

Greed, hunger, poverty, and lost hope are all that my blurry eyes can see.

I follow a dark shadow as it steals a mother's last dollar right from her hand.

I watch the child reach for his mother, he looks at me horrified, our heavy eyes lock.

I look away, pretending not to notice the desperation in his weakened eyes.

I have nothing to offer yet I feel his unending pain, I see his tormented humiliation and shock.

I shudder as that man on the television continues to feed us his beautiful lies.

Beneath that shiny window, I see a hopelessly lost and hardened Vietnam vet.

He fought a pointless war on a blood-stained enemy shore back in 1974.

He pulls a tattered blanket close and tightly, nobody cares about him anymore.

I watch rich politicians pass him by on the freezing, ice-cold street with absolutely no regret.

I tried so hard not to break down and cry as the caustic tears spilled down my face.

All of these people are left so cold, scared, hungry, sinfully lost, and all alone.

I close my eyes as I make my way to my warm, safe, comfortable home.

Leaving behind all of these lost souls who are stuck, sad and dishonorably out of place.

I've yet to see the so-called promised land where everyone drinks from the same fountain.

I throw a stone and curse the man who keeps telling the lies, a broken window.

Picture the world, minus a rainbow, when day becomes night, then where does the sun go?

We are all lost in the shadows, collapsing behind a tall frozen governmental mountain.

As I enter my home safe and warm, those faces continue to nefariously haunt me in my bed.

I toss and turn, I cry as I wonder why so many of us win and yet so many more of us lose.

Isn't this the life that if given the chance, we would all so gratefully and agreeably choose?

A place to call home and someplace safe and warm to lay our tired and weary heads.

Don't ask me what home means to me, don't ask me because you already know.

Ask a homeless person, "What does home mean when you have no place to go?"