Over the years a number of songs and poems have grown out of my experiences with poverty and homelessness, both from the sides of having lived on the streets and from working with/for different organizations to aid the homeless, and this song is merely one of them. All too often, especially for people living on the margins, simply knowing you’ve been seen and acknowledged can be the beginning of healing and empowerment. The lyrics describe and invoke not only my own personal thoughts and feelings as I had them during those hard times, but they also I think sum up the thoughts and feelings of others who have lived in similar circumstances, and so I hope will provide some sense of camaraderie and even catharsis to those living it as a reality right now wherever they may be. If this song can at the very least raise awareness or empathy or give a voice to the voiceless then that is more than enough.
Can’t Go Up
In a melancholy urgency
I crawl out of my cocoon
Pick myself up out of the ooze
Take a gaze up at the moon
Grizzled in appearance
Unshaven and eyes faded
Got change to spare he asks
I say, ‘Change is complicated’
The melody of the night
Does nothing to soothe my mood
My senses are assaulted by the street
This awakening’s so rude
The broken sound of sirens
The tempo of marching feet
Copter blades flashing in the sky
Cops lined up and down the side of the street
I slide into these holy jeans
My pockets full of nothing
Barefoot on broken glass and concrete
Already I can feel my soul is chafing
Newspaper rolls in clusters
Crumpled pages from a bum’s diary
Littered rolled papers with buds of weed
Tumbleweeds and crumbling daydreams
Sky up above full of smoke
The stale scent of urine and feces
Heaviness in the cold city air
The state of things so hard to breathe
All these sickly sensations
And all these sounds and sights
Recycled and regurgitated
Just so I can have four more lines
And what am if not a failure
When you come down to it
This is my empire of the homeless
This is my kingdom of unwanted, broken shit
So, how am I supposed to rise up
How am I supposed to thrive
When social mobility is downward
And it takes everything I have just to survive
The lines to the shelter are growing
The benefits are being cut
The doors to all the churches are locked
And for us all doors of opportunity are shut
So, who am I supposed to be
My education’s going to waste
And of success I’ve no experience
Because life’s got a bitter taste
Fairness is illusion, okay
Justice protects the crime
Victims go to prison, baby
And I don’t have the time
The roof overhead’s collapsing
The walls are all closing in
The economy’s rebounding, they say
But where did that begin
I’m rolling on the sour carpet
Made of nails and dust and cum
Of leaves and rust and old blankets
And what have I become
I am nothing but invisible
To all you yuppie fucks
I am past my breaking point
So goodbye, farewell, good luck