Even with the streetlights on, it gets dark outside. And trust me, it always gets cold.

We gathered pizza boxes and liquor bottles around us to keep us warm. It kept the light at the end of the tunnel shining. And though we never walked towards it, we had it around as a point of focus. Something to gather around and tell our stories while the bottle got passed around. We didn't have a care in the world, we were seen as the crust-botom of society and it was expected of us to live freely. Of course we weren't serious, we're a bunch of dirty clowns going with the hedonistic wave. And if you think you aren't jealous of us for having the audacity to live a life of freedom, then you're wrong.

Everyone wants this.

Why else have I seen randoms getting on their high horse and yelling at us for doing exactly that? What the hell do they care when I've done nothing at all to get in their way. Most of the time, I'm polite and cross the road, just to tip my hat and let that poor soul work out my existence in their own time.

But, why so serious? Because living care-free is one thing which I can always go back to. But hell, I move from town to town as if its 1933, carrying a guitar, a banjo and an accordion, a notebook filled with poems, writings, drawings and lyrics. And there's something called the internet that I just need to push the buttons to, maybe there'll be an opportunity I gotta see! Then, I'll turn it down because the streets is where I want to be. But, at least, I'll have seen't it.

Sure, I get that the phrase, "turn the other cheek," has good intentions behind it. Same as, "do unto others what you would have them do unto you." 

Both of these are wonderful ideas.

But how are we as individuals supposed to live up to those when, as a general whole, society doesn't?

I can turn the other cheek every fucking day, but, where will that get me? What will be the result?

These days... a tear-stained face and two, red, stinging cheeks.

I can do unto others what I want them to do to me every fucking day as well but, all it will get me is into trouble.

Financial trouble, emotional trouble, physical trouble... Any number of troubles.

Because no one gives that same courtesy in return.

In this world, being kind gets you walked over and, basically, abused.

Society will rape you until you are nothing but a husk, a shell, an empty flesh with no sense of identity, no means of survival and completely alone. 

It will give you fake friends, false pretenses and lies. 

And I am fucking over it.

It's every fucking man for themselves and I don't want to live in a world like that. 

We weren't meant to be this way.

We can't survive this way.

I realise that by asking where these actions lead me or what they get me is paradoxical to the meaning and intention behind the phrase.

It isn't supposed to be about me.

The fact that I am even questioning these phrases fills me with guilt!

I want to help people.

I know what it is like to feel helpless, alone, lost, afraid and hopeless.

But how far am I supposed to go?

How do I do this and still retain my own self-preservation?

Therein, lies the conundrum...