Listening In | Teen Ink

Listening In

November 10, 2011
By Bthnyppsk21 BRONZE, Titusville, Pennsylvania
Bthnyppsk21 BRONZE, Titusville, Pennsylvania
1 article 6 photos 0 comments

Business men and women, the clicking of their shoes who’s prices I could not imagine wake me. I hear the things others don’t- The things others don’t care to listen for. Demented? Maybe. I like to think not, but I’m starting to believe I am. Erratic, yes. My aged eyes may be wearing to but inactive spheres among a dirt-washed face of deep depressions and creases. And although I don’t have much, I will put what I have on the certainty I have seen more than you. Whoever you are, I don’t know. I may never know, and that’s okay with me. I’ve seen and am able of understanding people inside and out which is something I believe the majority of today's human being is almost completely incapable of doing.

I’ve heard their stories, whether they are intended for me or not. I spend my time not wishing, but imagining what one’s life is like with the information I gather from a brief second of one’s one sided telephone conversation as they pass, not giving me a second look. Not ever a second look to a man sitting on a sidewalk against a building wearing things others call garbage. Not ever a second look to a man holding a sign in which is his last resort in begging for food. The lies drown his brain as he thinks about what is written isn't true. He doesn't have a family to feed, or a baby on the way, but just a synthetic plea for guilt painted on his face. That, is the day life. There too, is a night life. The time where I see people who wouldn't quite fit in with people who travel in the day life. I sit at the same place for days and see the changes of people correspond to the changes of day light. Once the curtain drops in front of what is keeping the day life alive, there are others. Ones who come and go, to places I don't know where. Sometimes, they don't come back. It's hard to predict the places these people are going, but I don't try. I watch, and I listen.

Has there ever been a difference between you and I? I would like to say no, although you probably think otherwise. You’ve gotten to where you are because of the actions you’ve undertaken. I too have nobody to blame for where I’m settled today, for I have made every decision in my life myself. If I could be part of society and see myself would I be disgusted? Or would I feel for him. why would I? I wouldn’t be him. I wouldn’t have the worries I do. But I’m me, and I’ve ended up in but a place that transformed me to be too minuscule to change my surroundings. Change what you’re not happy with. Not what society makes one believe should change. 

The author's comments:
This piece is written in the perspective of a homeless man who just may listen to his surroundings more than the average human and is able to understand things more than what society would expect for him to understand.

Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 0 comments.