Today I saw something that, through reoccurrence made me want to write.

 For the last three years I have seen this same man on the street every day, walkie talkie in hand.

Through my work, our paths crossed today. Walkie talkie in hand he asked me how I was in a boyish tone.

That’s when I realized that he wasn’t just some jobless guy who sits on his stoop every day with a walkie talkie, he was retarded. Not in the sense of Arnie Grape, but there isn’t really an area of threshold when it comes to the handicapped.

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  So I got to thinking, for three years (since I have seen him) this guy has had this thing glued to his hand. Is it a security blanket for him? Does he honestly expect someone to contact him one day? A lot can be said for this, and while working I was trying to force my mind to think of words strong enough to describe this relationship he has with it. Trying to find the words to fit together and string on a powerful, beautiful, resemblance to some form of poetry.

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 This guy who has nothing deserved that much. The resilience he’s shown with keeping it on him at all times, I’m sure everyone told him no one would contact him but he kept it anyway. Charging it every night, keeping it by his bed side, there’s something to be said about that.  A man with no mind has hope. Fucking beautiful.  I haven’t written a poem since I was sixteen, and seeing him made me want to write one about him.

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             But it wasn’t until I was leaving the job that he told me what it actually was. All these years, wrong. I was informed with the articulacy with that of a six year old with a mouthful of marbles that it was a police scanner.         

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And with that, a day’s worth of words was thrown out of my head. Couplets were poured into a blender and put on puree’.  Deep impacting similes made to lure you in deeper were shoved into a box, beaten with a bat, tied to a brick and thrown off a bridge. Ironic, ignorance is bliss. In two different worlds, him being the ignorant and happy, and me being ignorant to what was really happening for the last years.

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 He was waiting alright; day and night.  Guess I was right about that. He’s probably sitting outside right now, scanner in hand, still listening, and waiting.  It’s strange how ones perception of beauty can change to disgust in a matter of nanoseconds.

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Nosey fucking bastard