A Paycheck Away

I talk to the
forgotten.
They live all around us
on the streets,
in the aqueducts,
behind shopping malls,
and garbage cans.
They were once children,
born with a chance.
In their eyes,
you can still see
the spark of life
that has been
gifted
to us all.
Not all of them
face addiction.
Some just made
a couple of bad choices.
Some only need
another chance.
But all of them
are ours.
They belong to you
and me.
They are brothers
and sisters,
fathers and mothers,
lovers, and alive
in the great spectacle
we call life.
I speak
to the soiled
who could just use
a hand
getting up,
and getting on
with where they should be
rather than being punished
for where they are.
And let's face it,
most of us are
but a step away from
the same plot
of earth
they inhabit.
Most of us
are within a couple
of weeks
of being broken down too.
We just don't want
to admit it.