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INSIGHT

From the 2016 Collection "Nickels and Dimes"

I saw him on the side of the road,
       on the side of the interstate exit ramp.
Maybe he was 18, definitely not 21,
       tired but not yet haggard.
The moment I saw him
       he wasn’t holding
       his cardboard sign, though.
He had a small notebook
       into which he was scribbling.
I knew what he was jotting down—
       an insight.
I knew it because I was—
       I am the same homeless junkie seeker.
I’m just a bit older now,
       better practiced at maintaining
       the façade of a normal life—
               a task far less dignified
               than begging and vagrancy.
Seeing him I wondered,
       how many more
       stretches of hell will I endure
       to unearth one more insight?

From the 2016 Collection "Nickels and Dimes"
A collection of Juvenilia

#homeless #insight #jmartindean #Juvenilia #nickelsanddimes #poetry #vagrancy

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