Skid Row of Skid Rows

There's a strip of block I know only as
the end of the world. It lies just west of Main
on Hastings. Center of all that is foul in
God's creation, the most rank, the worst
you've seen ten times over. Most folks like
to act as if, in North America, we may know
some poverty but nothing like the hellish
depths in which it's known in other
parts of the world. I've been across
the world and back a couple of times,
on my own steam, done just about
everything you could do for money, and
to escape it, and lived mostly, honestly,
as if each day was about to be my last. And
I swear on all that is precious, there is no
worse place than this, not one, not one
that stinks worse, not one with more
strung-out whores, not one with more
pills and powders and vapors waiting to
set you free. There is no spot where
all the terrible capacities of men and women
come together in such a palpable fashion,
the ways our sons and daughters might be
just a heartbeat from walking the streets,
the ways we just might find ourselves
shivering on a stoop right here some day,
the ways we've really known of acts
and even thoughts much more horrific, more
dreadful to countenance, more sordid at
their core than just this Skid Row of
Skid Rows. I've always understood how such
places come to be. What I don't fathom is
feeling so very right at home, so very much
among my own, so lucid about right and
wrong. I'm terrified, not of the thugs, but
of recognizing my own face in the scarred
face of some pimp, in the ghostly face of
some junkie, in the grizzly face of a wino
who, God damn it, looks a lot like my
father did just out of college. I'm frightened
but can't stay away. I arrive in town and,
right off the bat, this is where I find myself,
with hopelessness, shattered dreams, and
stolen futures all around me. I return
again and again, keeping myself intensely
reminded how low I could go. I'm not
quite there yet. But I check regularly.

(2007)