Hungerness

I'm going to write something every day. Well, almost every day. I don't care if it sounds eloquent or intelligent, hell, I don't even care if it "flows". I just want the honest truth of each day, the moments that pass unapologetically, the thoughts harassing my mind as I'm trying to convince my wired body it wants to sleep. Once again I find myself on the bus, riding up and down the beach front. South to north, north to south. I've been wearily watching this pattern develop for years now. North to south, south to north, sad to north, now to south. Back and forth and up and down and sometimes even inside out, filling and emptying, filling back up and falling down and emptying out again, spilling and spreading down the coast. Salt on a snails body, late hot nights in the summer on the back deck, laughing while I squirm.

At the beach I have to transfer buses. Everyone empties onto the street, young girls with messy makeup returning from their spring break festivities, families and their annoying crying children, a deaf man and his wife. I sit on a bench in the sun and as I carelessly peruse the internet from my smart phone, a man approaches the group. His face is brown from dirt that's been there for days, his clothes worn right through. "Hey man, can I get fifty cent? I'm just really hungry and tryin to get some food. Mcdonalds has sandwich for a dollar I can get." I think, judgmental and wrongfully,that  he is probably just trying to score some drugs or buy a beer from the corner store. On my lap sits a styrofoam box protecting my left over blackened mahi sandwich and a large head of broccoli. It's my dinner. I'm pretty broke, being a college student and all. But fuck that. He needs it way more than I do. (Okay maybe all I had yesterday was a bowl of chocolate Cheerios and a coffee, I'm pretty malnutritioned at the moment but still this guy totally needs it more than me.) I lifted the box from my lap, holding it out towards him. I swear I thought for a moment it was Christmas morning; this man lit up like the big tree in the city. My heart shook at the sight of his facial expression : pure joy. What followed was worse and almost instantly tears began falling from my face. "You have food," he asked. I shook my head yes and smiled, handing the box with my name written on it to him. "It's fish though, is that alright?" 

"I don't care what it is as long as it's food." 

And he walked away. The sun shone in my face, glaring against the glass windows of cocktail lounges and beach stores. It burned a little but I think what really hurt was the emptiness I was left with, thinking of this child like man and his hunger, his happiness. What sort of world do we live in where a man cannot implore the generosity of a stranger to buy him a dollar sandwich? Where has our compassion gone? Our unity? We are so isolated, secluded in our cozy homes with our hot water and cold freezers full of packaged goods that'll last a year. We have no community, we have no love, not for ourselves and certainly not for one another.