the shirt said it all…,STOP THE MESSIN’…GOD IS BLESSIN’….,worn by a mid-20’s black mom with a child screamin’ out in one arm and another tugging at her pants sayin’…,I’m hungry momma…I’m hungry…,while the young mother yells into a cellphone…,Nigga you best be gettin’ me’s mine’s money bitch….how I gonna’ feed these two boys motherfucker….how…,she didn’t cry…she didn’t ask…she told…

it’s the same problem everywhere…the clean have cut-off the filth from food…the mom was cut-off….the beggar in the street was cut-off…i was cut-off….what could one do…

jobs were scarce…money was always low…and addictions were high…some liked the pipe…others the bottle…for a lot it was sex…or the purchase of being with another body for a matter of minutes…knew guys who’d spend paychecks on whore after whore after whore in a matter of a few hours…just so they wouldn’t be alone….

my addiction was the road…the constant battle for travel…every week a different town…sleepin’ in shelters…burned-out cars…behind trash dumpsters at WalMart….didn’t care if i ever ate again…only wanted to always be moving from town to town to town…just keep me goin’ God was all i asked…

i’d left the clean behind…decided to go native in search of america….wanted to see the muck-n-the-mire…the guts squished-out in back alley brawls…longed to see america throwing-up in trashcans at 3 in the morning…i was never disappointed…

i’ve seen the work of the clean…i am a result of their deeds…

and i am thankful….

grateful to be a vagabond on the road to nowhere…no-longer cursing out people…corporations….politicians….why bother…i had america ahead of me…

who could ask for anything more….

you wanna see a culture….

stab it in the guts and watch it bleed….

and that’s what i did…..