I am cash. Cash. Cash. Cash.

Paid for grasp. grasp. grasp.

At your heart. heart. heart.

I throw dart. dart. dart.

At your day. day. day.

In your mind. I hope I stay, because quite franically I need 20 bucks for things you don’t need to know about.

Like food, and water, and a blanket, because I lost the blanket last night trying to find food because I lost my wallet in the river, well threw my wallet in the river, because I was paranoid there were people chasing me, and really they were just walking to the store at night.

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Daily writing prompt

What’s something most people don’t understand?

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I am sitting on a street corner, watching everyone walk by, making eye contact with people with nice clothes on, for just a second and then looking away, this being a better technique than most people’s “Can you spare any change?”……….

YOU SOUND LIKE AN ***HOLE..

Yeah..

They don’t understand we are just addicts who do not want to screw anyone over, we have to because we are slaves to our addictions, most of us feel bad about it. It perpetuates the addictions of most of us… We use and drink to be able to sleep and think because we are addicts and then we end up, or some of us do anyway, out of the street, having to panhandle, steal, lie, and some of us gain some sort of semblance of pride that comes from being good at it. I am good with words, I liked doing what I did not because I liked being a liar but because I like playing with words.

There are hundreds like me, thousands, who failed and get some sort of semblance of control from panhandling vocally, or writing clever signs, or sitting outside with a sign for 12 hours and making 200 dollars a day.

I am, by the way, an ***hole, but I am trying to change now.

“Man is the vainest of all creatures that have their being upon earth.”

Homer, The odyssey

I used to live in the woods, really I did. I spent an entire 8 months in the Oregon dunes, somewhere and everywhere in Oregon. I lived there and survived by clamming, and panhandling for food money, and don’t feel bad for me, I made 200 dollars a day, so very promptly after getting there, I developed a nasty attraction to bitter rocks that ate a hole through my hands and my soul.

They chased me to California. I walked there, I think I mentioned that before, high as a kite, I flew on the feet of the dragon, and the wings of fallen dreams to the state of California, with an angel of mercy sent to me whose name ironically was Chris, he sang like a bird the entire way. He was a beautiful singer. My arrogance and pride caused me to walk away, literally from one of the kindest human beings I have ever met in my life, without even saying goodbye. He screamed after me, and I ran, fleeing kindness for California, where I would meet what I was running to, an empire of pain on the sullied streets, I thought I desired so much. I am sorry Chris, you were kind to me, and I should have at least said goodbye.

I have maintained the anonymity of my real identity not just because I am a liar. I am a liar, but I also thoroughly ruined my life to the point where the anonymity is necessary because there are certain people who are very angry with me who I do not want to have contact with while I am trying to recover from addiction and try to make some sort of effort to be a decent human being. I have faced the very real ramifications of a life spent back and forth on the streets and in houses funded by unsavory methods. I desire the anonymity because there are certain friends I have that are very unsavory characters, who want to kick my *** for lack of a better word. I faced all the situations in this story minus actually having to hurt anyone. I wrote about that as a way to get justice in a fictional way, and get out repressed rage when what really happened was I had to turn the other cheek and feel like a coward because I walked away instead of standing up for myself.

Damien

The quiet ramifications of a life of pushing everyone away, or I am surrounded by silence because I pushed everyone away.

I hate it because it reminds me of what a failure I am, I have lived most of my life, lying to myself. I am unhappy because I am alone, and have spent my life drug/alcohol seeking. I do not have any friends, my friends I had are all dead or don’t talk to me anymore, so I sit alone all day and write on here and I hate it and love it at the same time. I love that I am no longer surrounded by the negativity I was surrounding me before, which I don’t want, but it also reminds me what I have missed because of my choices. I chose to dedicate my entire life to drugs and alcohol a magnum opus of failure. I am alone all the time forced to reflect on all the bad choices I have made.

I lived as a homeless person, squatter, bum, panhandler, conartist and petty criminal for the last 17 years. I was on a constant mission to fuel only my addiction while obtaining a master’s degree in public policy which I have used as a way to skirt the law. I have not committed any serious crimes. I have panhandled, lied, cheated, gambled, and conned my way through life. That is the truth, the full truth and no lies.

Damien.