Feature: Dear nineteen year old white kid in Portland pretending to be homeless

By Bethany Brownholtz

When asking for spare change you mustn’t “Maam,”
even though I may seem motherly and kind.
Responsibility has nothing much
to do with trust-fed vagrant, junkie rockstars,
seeking smokes and  bumming sandwiches.
When vaunting cardboard signs you musn’t flaunt
organic sprouts, your Diesel jeans, your dog.
I see father’s funding spread across your
multi-thousand dollar braces, gleaming
fraud beneath misfortune, manufactured.
My son, to place a quarter in your cup
would only serve to validate your quest
to find the self through pseudo-self-denial,
the pirating of others’ misery. 

Bethany is earning an M.A. in Writing and Publishing at DePaul University in Chicago.