I didn’t ask for this life

I came to it the same way

I've come to everything

Turned some corner

Missed a bus

Tripped on broken concrete

However whenever whatever

He found me the way

Prowling dog packs find fragrant garbage

He found me the way

Crazy people find the nine one one redial

I stood there in the fog of my two day drunk

Assaulted by flies and sun and air

Just needing something to lean on

Or fall

Just needing a few swallows of cool water

To reestablish enough of a buzz

To survive the lunch rush

Crowds milling around me

Avoiding me

Recognizing my smell from times

Perhaps only a week removed from today

Recognizing my eyes boiled in their sockets

A shrimpnet of crimson concealing pupil and iris
alike

Recognizing these things and hating them

Recognizing and fearing

My stare willing them away willing them on

And there he was manifested from

Tire grime and French fry cartons

And the sweat vapor of the city

Handing me water

In his cupped palms

Moving them to my lips

In that weird slow motion of dehydration

And I wanted the water but I didn’t

Want it like this         a humiliation

That he knew what I needed

What I craved what I was trembling without

He held those hands steady knowing I would

concede

Knowing I could not not drink

And waited patiently on that searing street

In the soft aggression of that crowd

Until my neck bent

My lips opened

My own hands reaching up tremor-led

Bringing him closer

And I drank.

Sometimes you find truth.

And sometimes it finds you.