What I See

I see you as you sit behind the screen on a small stool in your paper suit, or your prison garb or your dirty clothes and I think how different your life could be.
I wish that you could see what I see, through your addiction, through your smudged face, your unruly hair.
I see your sparkling blue eyes, though red, are beautiful. That even though sometimes you make no sense, I can tell you are smart, your vocabulary gives you away.
I see that you have a sense of humor, that somehow through homelessness and chronic addiction you have survived, that you are more resourceful than I am, can live on two dollars when I have difficulty living on much much more.
I see the person that you are underneath your illness, that your petty crimes are how you survive, how you make it through another day with no money, how you feed yourself, or your habit, or your children, and that is all you know how to do......
I wish you had been given a chance, but you didn't have one, even in the womb, as drugs crossed into your body through the umbilical cord, as endorphins coursed permeated your environment as your mother was punched by your father.
I do what I can, and I hope it helps, I don't know if it will and I know that it might only help for a little while but at least it might help you find something that for some people is forever elusive, hope.
With that shred of hope, my wish for you is that it will grow, and lift you, and bring you to a place where you can see yourself as I see you, a precious human being, a person with a purpose, a person who can really live.