12/30/09

He called yesterday but I did not take the call.

He colored my dreams last night anyway, dreams where there was no sanctuary for me, a time where I lived no where and was not wanted by anyone.

Today he came into the office, his hands held together, like if he held his impending homelessness in front of him it would stay there. I took him into a conference room, sat next to him, touched his arm, and did what I could. Which I know is not enough.

On the bus ride home I could still smell all of the cigarettes he smoked to give him enough spine to talk to me. We pass a dead end street casually guarded by a man and a large fighting dog parked to discourage holiday shoppers and tourists from interfering in whatever business is being transacted down in the shadows of the winter twilight. In a garbage strewn service alley, someone is kneeling with their face to the wall. At the part of town where we dump our poor, the bus idles to stay on its schedule. We are waiting behind the drugstore while a sunburnt frayed specimen dances the edge off his meth fix.

I don't know how to make any of this matter as I am heading for home.