Now is the time for a hundred indecisions 

Time for you

And time for me

To prepare the face we will meet

We sit back in silence watching Brilliance

take his breath like a baby gulping in his first atom of oxygen, dust, and sound.

walk with two soles stuck to the ripped up ground

watch his parents spit and split because there ain't no more to go around

See that man standing there with his face cast down

holding up that cardboard paper like it's some patched up confession

But what do we do?

Do we blame ourselves or do we secertly blame the world?

Do we point useless sharpened knives at these people?

Do we judge too quickly because well, that's what all of them are like?

We pass That Dirty Homeless Man with uncomfortable glances

We whisper to our family and friends, and say "this is what happens...watch it"

But what we don't know is that  maybe his father didn't want anything to do with him

Maybe his mother took him away and worked at the lowest of lowest paying jobs

just so that they both could eat something and sleep somewhere, someplace

And every morning, he walked to school, sometimes in the same clothes from the day before

And when he had to take those quizzes that asked him 'who are you?', he didn't know how to answer

And maybe he joined the kids passing smoking plants because he felt like he belonged

And those bad stuff he did along the way actually made him feel like he was something

"Dad, look. I don't need you to protect me. I got a weapon."

"Mom, don't worry. I'll know who I am soon enough. You just wait."

"See, I can live on my own. Money's hard to come by. But I save a cent per day. It's all good."

But on his carboard, he still holds the sign: "I am Homeless. I am hungry. Please..."

America, He is Brilliance.

We don't see any other man as desperate him, getting up early and walking up and down

near passing cars, asking for the same thing,

Every. Single. Day. He's hungry for

freedom from society's jail bars and for the chance to be more than That Dirty Homeless Man

Man,  he knows that he can only move forward now

Because this was the only direction God gave him, Brilliance