In the dark.

Rainfall. Downfall. Slip....fall.

Sneaker line
thrown away
thrown away high
never to touch the ground again
hanging by myself.

Rusted
was once shining
was once rode
was once a couple
but no longer
now only me and the continuous rust.

Audience
lights glowing
Hearts thumping
bodies clanging
music starts
everyone's there for the same reason.

Bench cans
left behind
used
alone
yet
cola meets beer.

Robert Mills is someone I have gotten to know a little bit about in the last four or five years. Living by himself in a subsidized housing, he was a friendly panhandler on the Danforth for many years and struggling to make ends meet. Cut off from his family, with failing health and limited prospects for the future, I approached Bob whose living conditions have improved greatly in recent years, to explore the issue of exclusion and inclusion.

Bob’s favourite time of the year is summer. Summer is the only season in which he can be free to move where he wants; where he can be included in the swarms of city-goers. In the summer he goes down to the beach in the eastern end of Toronto. With his stereo duct-taped to his scooter, blasting class rock tunes and his ‘hula girl’ attached to the hood of his vehicle, he drives along the boardwalk for hours. He is hooked up to his oxygen tank ensconced in his carrier up front, enjoying the water, sand, blue sky, and most importantly, feeling included in the hubbub of the city.

Bob suffers from chronic emphysema, a crippling and fatal lung disease that prevents him from breathing without the aid of an oxygen tank. He is limited to moving around in a scooter – and cannot go anywhere where there are barriers: buildings with steps and stairs or buses without lifts.

He talks of his emphysema with simple eloquence. He says that it makes him feel as if he’s drowning:  It’s like I’m gasping for air, but there’s no one there to help me. I’m all alone.

The physical effects of emphysema keep him shut inside his subsidized apartment during the winter, but it is the psychological impact that it has on him that is more tragic. Bob stays inside his house for days at a time, with almost nobody to talk to but his cat. He wonders if his cat might actually answer him one day. “I had a lot more fun before I had emphysema”, says Bob. “I’ve come a long way in the last few years—but I would give everything up if I could get my health back.”

With the oncoming summer, Bob’s next few months are looking brighter, but soon as autumn sets in and then winter, once again he will be cut off from the world, trapped inside his home, and in a body that seems bent on suffocating him.

Bob holds onto a few notes of optimism though, one imagines it would be hard not to.
“I’m okay.
I’ll be okay.
At least that’s what I keep telling myself.”