Dear Man in a doorway

Dear Man in a doorway on the south side of Oak St, approx. 8:30pm sometime in April 1999.

I think of you often. Mostly when I wish I didn’t exist. Also, whenever I hear about someone who’s done something that makes me worry about the pain they are in.

I hope that whatever ghosts were with you when you stepped out of the doorway, wrapped me in your arms, and held a gun to my back have gone away or healed. And I hope that you do not remember me.

Your story and your pain are not mine to guess about. But you are the only person who said you’d kill me and came so close to follow through. The tip of the barrel next to my then limber spine. And there is just a weird intimacy in that.

So I think about you sometimes and wonder what pain or loss or whatever could lead you to risk both our lives for the two dollars and a raincoat in my old green canvas bag. It had a small red cross on it and I’d found it at Goodwill. I didn’t care that you took it. I was just thankful that you didn’t do what you’d said and shoot me if I talked. Even though I did.

Thank you for not harming me. Thank you for all these years of movement with a torso not ripped through by metal. Thank you for not pulling the trigger

I am not kidding when I give you this thanks. Because, amid the moments of my own pain, I am also terribly, gratefully glad to exist, to hold dear all I love in this strange and acutely unjust world, and to hope and work for change.

I hope the same for you too.