He’s a 36 year old man living alone in an apartment by the railroad tracks. He is a recent divorcee and has no family to speak of. His wife and her lover caught him coming home early with a dozen roses and a bottle of wine. He lost everything. His wife, his house, his kids, his job, and his self-esteem. Every time he passes someone on the way out to his truck, he smiles, as if everything is alright, even though anyone with two brain cells and a bottle of jack could tell that there is something terribly wrong inside of this poor gentleman. You’re his neighbor and some nights you can hear him sobbing through the wall. Yet, every morning he still calls his children, hoping they’ll want to hear from him, knowing somewhere that they don’t.

She’s a 24 year old woman you see walking on the wrong side of the road at 4 a.m. She has a man’s overcoat thrown over a dress that is way too tight for such an early morning. You’d like to pretend that she is taking the walk of shame home from a one-night stand, but deep down you know that what is going on here is something much worse. She has held needles longer than the three children she isn’t allowed to see. Most people would look for someone to blame this on; maybe her mother was abusive, maybe her father molested her; but she just looks for a way out, knowing deep down that there isn’t one.

They’re an elderly man and woman, 85 and 83 respectively, that you see at 6 a.m. in the same restaurant that you inhabit. They seem to be married, but the aluminum band around her left ring finger could hardly suffice as a wedding ring. They never order anything except for coffee and pay in nothing but change that could be mistaken as a beggar’s makings. The somewhat waitress gives them somewhat service, for she knows that no tip is coming her way. The couple makes no complaint though, they’re just happy to be alive. They think that the world runs on love, and their naiveté is sweet, but not permissible. They’re not looking for help, knowing that no one is there to give it to them.

I’m an 18 year old poet trying to change the world with five paragraphs and colorful words. I don’t have much but I’m so much better off than the four slums before me. I see these things every day and I wish I could be the person to say that I stand up for what is right, and fight against what is wrong but, I can’t. We all know morality is a wish that we all make late at night, but when the sun rises we couldn’t be less involved in our fellow man. We’re only here for so long. I pray at night that what I do makes a difference, knowing that nothing could.

And you’re just reading a poem.