In the rain you walk
pulling your world behind you
with your dog beside you
I see you
for in you, I see me.
You stand in line at St. Anthony's
reminding me when I stood in that line too.
I pass you as I walk to Bart,
you thrust a crack pipe in my face
I see the heroin fix at the bus stop
Remembering the Methadone clinic at BART Geary
And my time in residence at Next Door
You think because I don't look like you
I am not like you, but I am.
for in you, I see me.
The Tenderloin
the Containment Zone,
clothed in poverty and addiction,
where we wear our pain and oppression
like the mark of Cain.
Somehow we think we belong here
the different, the outcasts, the addicted.
We walk the Zone to escape
the hotels of another era
that have become our prisons.
I see you
for in you I see me
a painful reflection
helping to remind me to reach out beyond myself
with kindness, a smile and a bit of hope
