Dear Joe America

This is not new, only a little more grown. These are my thoughts on who Jesus is, who is followers are, and who I should not be. This is what I feel most strongly about. This is a charge and a blame to Joe America and I wish I could say I’ve never been called Joe, but this life is a journey through imperfection to find what matters and not who is right. I am Joe and so are you. And so I aspire to be something more, or more appropriately, something less. I aspire to be something like Jesus.


Jesus was not a white, middle class, republican. In fact, he wasn’t even American. He was poor, homeless, and humble. He walked the streets and he ate with the unlovable. He worked with his hands, he washed people’s feet, and I’m pretty sure he smelled terrible. Revolutionary, is what he was and still is. So my heroes are people who act like Jesus and I’m sure there’s a few in my list you wouldn’t expect.

So let’s stop ignoring the homeless and the needy, and love them instead. Let’s stop preaching action and sitting in apathy. Let’s stop using the word Love with no intentions of acting on it. Don’t weep for the broken from afar, they should feel the wetness of our tears in the firmness of our embrace. Let’s simplify our lives so that we can appreciate the necessities. Let’s spend less money and more time. Let’s face eachother’s insufficiencies, and instead of spitting at their backs, let’s build up what we’ve broken and for once love in word, deed, and attitude.

This is a ramble, because it’s late and I’m restless. Revolutionary, let’s change something. From a literary stance this is a mess but take a look. Spend a dollar less today, work an hour more. Dumpster Diving, anyone? So be hungry. Be hungry to know more, to know people more, to give more, to give people more. Be hungry because you missed breakfast to feed someone who has missed all his meals, more than once.

Dear America,
We’ve been faking it less than lightly
for slightly more than a while.
Crazed, but not forgotten for an instant,
I think I hear a story.
Won’t you take your mediocrity and spare me
your excuses to listen for a while?

Take hold, this is beauty in the poverty of our beginnings.
To be coinless would lighten the load on my heart.
Lighter and richer because my soul lives
where the world fails to feed it.

And I’ve lived long enough to cry for a meal taken
from the mouths of those who cannot afford it,
and seen it thrust to the gluttony of the American Royalty.

Joe America has never met Want,
nor will they ever be more than casual acquaintances.
They will walk the same streets, but Joe
will lay his head somewhere else at night.

Quickly, this is a bust and you’ve no clue how to be hungry.
How could you possibly feed those whose hands are already in the pantry.

Crock of lies, let me toss you a sandwich,
because I bought this pen with money that
should have fallen to hands who cannot afford to write.

Freeganism, let’s dive in dumpsters and overwrite
the worn out tales that food can’t be secondhand.

I’ve been hungry all my life for a taste of social justice.
And I’m beginning to be filled by letting a full
stomach go empty and taking the man from the corner to Moe’s.

Joe America doesn’t know how to justify his salary,
because the dirty down the street gave him a carwash and a smile
for a word he’s unfamiliar with; free.
And for a reason he cannot comprehend; love.

Joe’s no more free from the bondage of his Rolex than the poor man is from his stomach.
Luckily some bread could free the hungry and we can only hope the hungry will free the rest.
Because of love.