He sits with the curve of his back pressed
against the cold, indifferent brick wall,
where within, among the glaring fluorescent lights
regular people shuffle along with their zombie walk.
The tendrils of chill seep through his torso,
curl about the tips of his fingers as they protrude
from his thinning and fraying fingerless gloves,
and nibble at his toes through the cracks in his worn shoes.
His matted hair gathers in thick branches across his drooping shoulders,
hangs over his eyes –
eyes that have seen the underside of our world,
the side that regular eyes notice not –
blue eyes with cracks of red veins reaching across the white.
Coughing, his lungs a-rattle like the change in his tin cup he shakes in the air,
he wheezes as another real-world person walks out of the store
and begs for change to put food in his belly –
Regular Man turns his head in disgust,
his kind almost always do –
and the beggar drops his cup to his side once more,
waiting for a person, a good person, the right person,
to show him a rarity in his world –
a kindness.
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