Being will not suffice.
Passion is not passive.
Do or don’t? Can’t or won’t?
The time is now.

Will you loiter on life’s corners
Watching others for direction?
Or strike out alone and wander,
Taking chances as they pass?

Will history remember your name?
Or will your voice remain
Just a feeble squeak
On the wind?

Do you matter?
What’s your point?
Do you crave significance
In this world of mediocrity?

- Pete (Jul 08).

Life’s dropouts punctuate the night-time street, harrowing stories repeated over and over, never making the news. Getting through tonight is more important than any tomorrow.

I never got birthday presents anyway, as mine fell on Christmas. I smile softly at the irony.

It’s not as cold as last night, but that was over: no point dwelling on it. Besides, the body went this morning. They couldn’t get its arms to bend and fit into the box so the two council workers just covered it in a blanket and carried it out to the van between them. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Laughter comes from the soul, and ours are black. Black as the festering pit in which we currently squatted, too cold even for fleas.

They will not listen, although I’m certain they hear. They have eyes everywhere, yet they will not see. So well-educated, yet enlightenment eludes them.

My ears would ring from the plank they used. The blindfold they tied tightly across my eyes served only to make the images more clear. For days the sound of the torture and killing of my defenceless brothers played endlessly across my mind.

They might scrub away the mess but never the memory. I, for one, bear witness.

I may not sleep. I cannot sleep. I will not sleep.

Mercifully, I am now set free from such earthly needs.

I feel no pain from the flames, for they only touch my body.