BX15: An Expose on Poverty

It is not that my eyes fool me. Not that I think there is, I SEE there is...All around me there is no laughter, there is no glitter, no twinkles in eyes, music in souls...

On the BX15, the crosstown bus that rides into the Bronx from my dear Harlem, I see a grim "once was". Buildings that should be demolished are still inhabited, streets that should be functional are caving in, people that should be rising have stood down.

Poverty is such a multifaceted concept; it is such an engulfing abstraction. It manifests in rippling effects and it consumes its (intended) target and then crushes it under its wrath. Hopelessness, despair, unhappiness, anxiety, disappointment, stress, weakness, destruction...seem to all follow you as if life were a magnetic field and you their adhesive counterpart. Endless becomes one's struggles and after enough time has passed, you come to lose sight of your predicament and you conform to its tragedy; you stop looking for doors, let alone windows, trapped doors and alternative escape routes; you sink as speedy as quick sand can suck you in and suck life out.

I sit and ride and try not to look, but if I pretend that it doesn't exist I too am like the rest: delusional (living in that which does not exist). So I force myself to look, I force myself to observe and not pray (I don't believe in an all powerful/ultimate being), but I FEEL. I feel for the people, for their children, for the community, for the amalgamation that's been constructed and dictated upon humanity, this humanity, that lives so deathly. I see the rear-ends of drugs peeking its head up at me, the dissonance between dreams & potential and reality, the surrendering being, the distressed, disheartened, and dispirited and I FEEL.

It is not a matter of observing and thinking and releasing the thought into thin air. We are not passive beings and we are not singular entities, we flourish amongst our flock; taking this into consideration, it is this that allows us all to fly, to be liberated. It is our ability to observe, think, and react (be active entities) that can generate change. You are one person and one alone, but it doesn't mean that you aren't a leader...lead.