Peace to Sister Sandra

We are the disinherited, the misfits, the poor and downtrodden. We quietly buck the social call to normalcy. Family doesn't get it. They always ask "WHY?". "She was so......" ;"He was such a ...."; "they were doing so good before....". And shake heads , cluck tongues, wring hands and lament as if we were dead. We quit jobs because we don't feel like going anymore. Too tired. too beat, too proud. But they treat us like criminals. We quit school because we were old enough to quit and had to help Mama with the other kids, or got pregnant with the one that points a finger and screams CRACKHEAD in our face or we made more money on the hustle than that high school graduate cousin changing grease at Church's (before the we got busted). For every dozen of us, there are 12 stories for how we got here. At this table. On this street. In this line, In this orbit , On this track. We are the exceptions that disprove the rule. Good people lose homes. Eat at Soup Kitchens. Need help to get by. We run the same circuit every day. The number of places we can go to escape the heat or cold or rain without being captured and put on display at Dougherty County Jail shrinks almost daily. NO LOITERING signs at the HOMELESS Shelter-How cruel is that? Broke-in-America is a crime waiting for a charge.

We make some of you cringe. You make assumptions about our character without knowing our names. The nasty look from a lady with a fish on her tag (must be a PISCES cuz she aint no christian). The man with a bumper sticker that proclaims his church's name who frowns and speeds past, afraid he'll have to make a christian decision if someone asks him for change. We draw the bile out by just living and refusing to die, just to make someones morning drive more pleasant or spoiling a kodak moment while going through the park. We are the test of your faith.

"How can you say you love God whom you have never seen, yet hate your brother whom you see everyday?"

Fuck it. I don't bow down to you or anybody else. I'm broke. Why do you care where the money went? Will you give me enough for shelter tonight? Why do you care why I don't have a job? Are you going to give me one? Or do I add yours to the mountain of rejections that I already have? Fuck You. I see the world you live in, the fear you drink like water and piss on those around you, stinking the planet up with the stench of your fright. Misery loves company and we leave you lonely. You hate to see us laugh. You think we know what you do not. We make you paranoid. Why, you wonder, would we opt to live outside of your zoo? We hustle yards and lots, collect cans and scrap iron. Work day labor and sell blood and clean houses when we could go to work like you and be too afraid to lose a job to stand up like a free human being in the face of some one's shit. You puppet. Dance Shine Dance. Run that race like a hamster in a wheel in a cage. Indulge yourself in that madness of finetuning the machine designed to kill you. Death row inmates plaiting nooses for the state.

Huh BREATHE. No right no wrong just venting because sister Sandra is dead. We met on the track. We laughed and smiled. I liked her a lot and I will miss her.

RIP Grandma Dynamite aka Sandra Williams peace and Power to the people