Today someone praised a poem I wrote
It is about considering the disenfranchised
at this supposedly jolly time of year
Why, she said, just think about all in need,
why not spend Christmas with them, she asked
Amazingly enough, that is just what I do,
For you see I am one of the poor and disabled
whose SSD checks just do not stretch to month's end
All who live in my building experience much the same,
depending on food boxes and the generosity of others
We come in all types and sorts, full of warts and woes
Mental illness has felled a number of us terribly
They closed the hospitals and mental facilities
Just can't afford them, government says, so out
they were tossed roam the streets, incapable and lost
Poor choices plagued many tender, women who loved,
or thought they did, men who beat and burned them,
took their money and left them ill and unable to fight
Years of abuse, wisdom awakened, years more to heal
to even a bare minimum of capability to survive
So, dear tender lady, with heart of gold, trust when I say
I live with the broken and poor and lonely each day
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