Document the sadness of New York

so much.
I can’t focus on it.

I’m going to try to focus on the
good things.
or try.

Today, I was on my lunch hour.
I was deciding between the greasy pizza, or the Wendy’s.
I chose Wendy’s.
Chicken miserable sandwich.
Banal, miserable fries.
Paid.
A man sidles up to me “{mumble mumble}...change..{mumble}”
He was so thin.
I gave him the change from my overpriced crap meal. (7 bucks for this junk?)

And I thought—here I am, bitching that I have to eat this crap; there are people who don’t have the opportunity to be in college, let alone an Ivy League…people who would eat this stuff happily, and I’m turning my nose up at it…shame on me.

As I ate my mediocre sandwich, and orange-dye fanta with the extra helping of high fructose corn syrup, I watched this man, like a hummingbird, carefully, quietly, mumble his quiet supplications for change…dismissive headshake…flit to the next…mumble…headshake…flit to the next…mumble…reach into the pocket, a few coins, he’d leave.

A few times he did this, every time it paid off and he ended up with a few coins, he’d leave.

I choked my sandwich down thru the lump in my throat.

He’d come back, and repeat the process, every time, leaving when he got a few coins. Must be adaptation, I thought.

I followed him with my eyes, across 8 lanes of traffic.

I looked ahead, at nothing.
Why didn’t I just buy him a sandwich?
Why didn’t I just give him mine?

A woman walked past me,
in my line of sight
A purse,
hanging on the stump
where her left hand should have been.

Why, God.
Why am I feeling sorry for myself?
There is so much suffering in the world
and I’m one person.
I can’t seem to fix any of it.

I couldn’t finish my lunch.
I just left—feeling sick.
Sick for a world I cannot seem to fix.