I really don't have anything important to say.

For my English class, my teacher has assigned a very interesting project. We are to make an Avant-Garde, or rather, a shocking piece of artwork that displays our personal views on the world today. While most of the class chose to create movies on the ridiculousness that is our government, I decided to discuss the selfishness of humanity and our obsessive need for the media and technology. Part of my project is a satirical essay on the homeless epedemic that has befallen our nation. To do this, I went into the city to take notes. I spent three days sitting outside random coffee shops, sipping coffee and people watching. What I saw was utterly depressing and sickening. What I saw was man's inability to love... It was different than anything I have truely ever seen... and it scared me. While I was there, I brought my journal and wrote in it. The following are a couple of exerts from it.

Mission St. 9:00 am.

I sit waiting at a bus stop in San Francisco. To my left lays a sky rise, to my right, the city's latest construction project. It is but nine am, and the city if boiling with life. Jack hammers and buses are a constant noise, spilling into my ears a depriving my head of any chance of clearity. Already, I am sucked into an entoxicating world, easily lost to the small city I left behind. Pigeons, used to human contact and limited space, loitre the city side walks, diligently scrounging for scraps. The city bus comes rolling down the narrow streets, tires squeaking and people rushing. Rushing. Hastily trying to get their day started, man has clocked in. Now, it is an all out war to acompolish the unacomplishable before night falls and the day ends. haha. Good luck.

It is as if they are stuck in fast forward, ceasing to pause and truely see what is happening around them. They're stuck in a cylcle. Wake up, work, sleep, wake up, work, sleep. A never ending cycle, trying to find the end. Do they not see that a circle has no end? It's ongoing. Maybe they missed the memo?

Ahead of me lies a rather large Sam Trams bus, daring the bold to enter and drown in the diverse ecstasy San Francisco's back alleys have to offer. I myself am tempted... but then I would be unable to adress what lays behind me: the forgotten. Behing me, men and women alike sit waiting. They have no concept of time, nothing to persaude them their life is worth living for. They sit waiting paitently for a day inwhich they can be acknowledged... A day when they are allowed to exsist.

Coming into the city, I was told to never look any homeless person in the eye. But what if... what if I actually did? What if I chose to actually see them, and better yet, what if I let them know I saw them? What if I was forced to see the tragedy man has let befall upon brother? "Don't look, Ari. Never look- they might expect it from everyone else."

The reality is, they cried out for help, and we pretended not to hear. We let them end up this way, stuck in a constant state of half-living, the fear of whether or not they will live through the night never leaving their thoughts. Man does what he does best, shrink back into himself and ignore.

We are quick to judge, quick to accuse, quick to blame such sorrow on anyone but ourselves. "Well, isn't it obvious Ari, they chose this lifestyle. We could do nothing to help. They wanted this." BULL! How could anyone truely wish this upon themselves???? Are we so afraid as to admit that they are broken and need help? Or is the real reason we refuse a helping hand because then it would mean we would have to admit we are just as broken? You, who are trying to fill an empty void by voluntarily get lost in cycles of work, and drugs and drinks and sex in hopes of forgetting. You keep busy to forget who you are, and they long to remember.

We deny them even that...

Market St. 10: 33

We constantly force the homeless to relive the moment their world fell apart. Man treats them like a stray dog. "Never feed them, never cloth them, and for God's sake, never love them because Lord help us if they ever come back for more!" Man dehumanizes the homeless, forgetting they have feelings and compares them to rats; filth. We worry of no one but ourselves, undoing the studies of Copernicus, becoming our own sun and expecting everything and everyone to revolve around us.

Market St. 3: 58

I ventured further down Market until I reached the tenderloin. I have no idea how I got there, but I did. I don't think I have been called white-girl quiet so much in just one hour (7 times, for the record). Admittedly, I began to get scared, so I turned around.

It's insane, the human tragedy that lives outside our house, playing in our backyard. Why didn't we see it coming? Wrong question. Why didn't we do anything to prevent it? I can't even imagine what it would be like; concrete my bed, darkness my blanket. I pitty the homeless. Fear is written on their face, desperation shown in the lines that adorn their faces. I wonder if they saw it coming? I wondered if they tried to stop it?

I close my eyes, the city noise consuming my soul, and I swear I can hear them cry out. I swear. Men and women alike, different in nationalities, sex and experiences are joined by one thing- to the world, they are faceless. It is human nature to want. And while the majority of the world worries about when the newest cell phone is going to come out, and whether or not they are going to be able to buy that ipod, the homeless wait for a loving hand to rescure them, hoping that love could some how save them.

Out of curiosity, Alice jumped down the rabbit hole, and now she's struck the bottom. How do you help her find her way out?

-Ari