I want to be the bum asleep on the bus stop bench, who has pissed himself, who you are embarrassed to look at, to even have noticed.
I want to be the prophet on the street that you avoid, mumbling incomprehensible truths which I desperately feel need to be heard.
I want to be the spaced out druggy that is willing to do anything – anything – for my next fix whom you throw a few bucks at while you carefully avoid touching as you quickly hurry past.
I want to be the kid whom you were embarrassed had a crush on you in high school.
I want you to find yourself above me in every way and I want you to thank God as you go to sleep at night that you have been spared from such a life.
I want my sadness to force you to turn away from me.
I want to descend the depths of desperation and for it to be unwatchable.
I want to be so wretched in my humility that it disgusts you.
I want you to see the humanity that we share, and for it to be unrecognizable to your blind eyes.
And I want this to destroy you.
I offer this word of explination, this commentary, not because I feel I have done a poor job expressing myself, but because I feel that too many of you are using your own preconcieved ideas about this kind of subject to color my words a different shade:
The question here isn't if you can take pity on someone who lays outside your personal definition of "social norms" because you want to help that person readjust and rejoin society. The question here is can you look at that person who is fucked up in so many ways and still love them, even if they will never change? Even if you never get to be their savior? Can you still sit next to that person and treat them like a human-being.
People don't need to be fixed. We are not sinks or fences or household projects. We are people. Everything we experience and everything we ever are will always be a part of us. We do not need to be fixed - we are, in fact, unfixable. We need to be loved, personally - we need each other.
You and that person who lays outside of your personal definition of "social norms" - and I am not just talking about the homeless or junkies, I am talking about the socially awkward and the physically unattractive - you aren't all that different. Can you sit next to that person, with nothing selfish to gain, and still talk to them?