Today is hard.

I can't find a job and it's making me understand some things. I've hated this system for so long. It's broken and forever will be unable to sustain anyone who knows it.
I have purposely lived my life eccentrically -- creatively learning to earn a living.
I'm a writer.
I'm a musician.
I'm a strong communicator.
I'm a dancer.

I can look good on paper but even better in action. Yet, what I don't have is the ability nor the desire to put on the smile, nod my head, wear what they wear, say what they say -- nor do I have the desire to even try.
So, that leaves me here -- living in-between the cracks I've fallen through. Or, maybe I purposely dove into them trying to avoid becoming 'one of them'.
And it's lonely in this crevice. Once in a while someone else falls in - someone new. Then, I become a teacher. This is what becomes my job.

"How did you get here?" they ask. "Did you see that hole up ahead?"
I wonder about my answer. Because I didn't necessarily see the hole up ahead. But, subconsciously I may have wished for a detour - something - anything to take me away from this unnatural way of being.
"No", I say daydreaming into their eyes. "I slipped."

But, I've got to be honest. The truth is I've chosen to stay here. I hear the mainstream traffic above me pounding ahead. Like herds of animals, I can tell the time when they are rising to go west and when, at the end of the day, they herd together towards the setting sun.
Mumblings, lights, drips and odors sometimes make their way down here. And I love when the soft rain falls gracefully onto the pavement above me. It is slow to drip into this crack but when it does it brings glitter - making this old, deep dark earth sweat.

I swear at times I can sense someone spotting the hole but choosing to jump over it with their brand new heels, in the rain. But something in me can see their pause. Their eyebrows furrowing and eyes searching back within their sockets.
Instead, they move on with the traffic. Maybe they'll return someday with a flashlight.

"Do you know the way out?" asks the newly fallen.
We look at each other exchanging subliminal messages. Silence. No answer. Sighs.

Looking at them in the silence of the graceful rain, I quietly respond "It's just that today -- I don't know if I want to be found".