I listened to a homeless man

I listened to a homeless man, who looked like an actor, tell me he was a campaign strategist for former President Bill Clinton and that Barack Obama had hired him for the next election. I wished him well and refused to shake his hand. I refuse to get my hands dirty. I do not believe in the convention of shaking hands. If you are not up to hug status, then we better avoid all forms of physical contact, however innocent.

I used to bleed chocolate cordials, but now I am allergic to all types of chocolate and I am not as sweet. I am allergic to myself, but I know how to laugh at my image ironically. I deeply respect the man who attempted to shake my hand, but his profession is theater, not politics, and he has the natural gift of gab.

Politics is what happens when two or more people are gathered together who do not realize they have the same origin and probably the same destiny somewhere in the spirit world. Like an actor on a stage, the homeless man performed a rehearsed monologue. He waxed philosophical about Caesar’s assassination, Islamic etiquette, and Ethiopian women. Not in that order.

My face betrays itself. I am unhappy. I say I am happy. I look unhappy. I think I have missed my calling to become an actor, like millions of other displaced people. Our home is the stage, but the problem is, we are reading from the same script and there aren’t enough mansions for everybody. So we are refined, like gold through fire, and all God asks is that our hearts are pure and that our words reflect the truth.

I could have listened to that homeless man for days lecturing to me about his idealized self, his past, our future in this country. But I wouldn’t touch him, because I could not bear his suffering. I could only bear witness from a distance. Now I burn. And I do not know his name.