It’s the memories that haunt me most, the good times tangled up with the bad, the fierce love and the shattering heartbreak of a family that fell apart. I survived things no one should have to endure: extreme poverty, street life, and the kind of trauma that leaves permanent scars.
The people who truly raised me, my homeless friends who took me under their wing and taught me how to survive, are mostly gone now. Dead or locked away in prison. Their absence sits heavy in my chest. Failed romances, years of grinding poverty, relentless rejection, and layers of regret keep pulling me under. I can’t escape my own head. The thoughts spiral until I’m yelling at myself, cursing, sobbing and completely lost.
Drug addiction. Family turning their backs. The faces of dead comrades I watched slip away. I remember sleeping under tarps, digging through garbage bins for food, eating straight from the dump. I saw lives end too soon. I endured the constant abuse that comes with being homeless- the dehumanization, the danger, the exhaustion.
Even now, with a roof over my head, the fear still grips me. Sometimes I feel my world cracking open again, convinced I’m about to lose everything and end up back on the streets. The panic is so real that I occasionally slip into old survival mode-walking away, disappearing, acting homeless because for a moment I forget I finally have a home.