The end of days

Starring out the window at the rising sun,

It seems only a moment ago,

The cold night would never be done.

For haggard spirits like me,

The endless night is a tragic reality.

My heart beat racing at the speed of light,

It’s been an age and a day since my soul felt right.

Try as I might,

I wont win this fight.

For my life has been consumed by darkness and hate.

I already know it’s far too late.

Redemption is a long lost hope,

I threw it all away to smash that dope.

I’ve spent many moons

Chasing that high,

And each time I did,

I felt a piece of me die.

My mind is possessed,

And my body is worn.

My clothes are dirty,

And my shoes are torn.

As I press on,

Down this highway to hell,

I realize I am no more than an empty shell.

If only I would have fought the good fight,

Maybe my life would have turned out all right.

Fait works in mysterious ways.

As fait would have it,

I have reached the end of days.

Written by Rai Leo

How I spent my vacation

I guess you could say this is my best story about the worst trip I ever took. I was like a lab rat for this buddy of mine who sold drugs. He'd give me all my drugs for free and I'd let him know if they were good or bad. One night he gave me these two caps of crazy looking ecstacy to try out. At the time I was i Osborne Village partying at the zoo and the night was kind of a blur. The next thing I remember I'm waking up under a staircase and there's this Asian guy yelling at me saying that he's gonna call the cops. So I get up and start walking around, and right away I can tell there's something wrong. I don't recognise anything, the air is different, and I don't remember ever seeing mountains in Manitoba before. So I stop this guy on the street and I ask him "where the hell am I?" and he tells me the name of the street we're on. This doesn't help, so I ask him again. So this guy looks at me like I'm crazy and says "dude, your in Vancouver."

Vancouver's not just like a hop skip and a jump from Winnipeg, it's like 3 provinces away. I must have been pretty messed up to block all of that out. At the time I thought it was pretty funny, but now that I've been sober for a couple of years the whole experience scares me a lot. Who knows what I could have done along the way. I don't know what other drugs I did, or who I hurt, or what crimes I commited.

Ecstacy isn't the great party drug everyone thinks it is. It's not all about dancing around and hugging trees and shit. There could have been any kind of toxic chemical in there.

Brian.

Bear spray

This is for any of you kids who decide to mess around with bear spray. Take it from me, it's illigal it's dangerous and you'll hurt someone with it. I was in my back lane and I looked down and saw a can of bear spray lying there on the ground. It was all good, but missing it's nozzle thing. I didn't know if it worked so I thought I would test it out by sticking a screw driver into the top. I didn't think to turn it away from my face and It sprayed out fast and got all over my hands and my face. Let's just say I understand how that stuff can drop a bear. I tried to run into my apartment but ran into a wall cause I couldn't see. When I finally got through the door I fell on the ground and had to get my friends to drag me into the bathroom and I ran the water on my face for like ten minutes. I couldn't breath or see for like half an hour. I gotta say it's stupid for anyone to use it.

-Anonymous

Two of the many things that weigh heavily on the minds and shoulders of impoverished people. We are depressed that the system is geared toward rejection and intolerance and desperate for anything that will get us out of a situation or to find the right substance to let our mind escape the pain we feel because of it. Problems created by the system create a multitude of daily problems for those who struggle daily to stay alive and safe until the next day. Those that have a comfortable life and do not worry as much as we do have very little or no understanding of what we go through and have no right to sit in Judgement over us as some / most of them do. We do what we need to do in order to survive, set back by the limits of others that would deny us the fundamental rights that everyone deserves. These barriers of intolerance and ignorance are what we are faced with every day and are contributing factors to why we are here in the first place. There is far too much resistance to helping people and an overwhelming amount of separation and subdivision. Truly, if we all work together to help each other instead of attempting to be more than everyone else, we could all prosper and be happier. We are given the freedom to choose, and do we not choose who we are by how we treat others? When you treat someone badly for a reason without justification, do you not judge yourself? When will we realize that causing problems for others causes problems for ourselves as well? It all comes down to a simple choice: How do I want to live my life? To live in self-service or in service to humanity? Selfishness or selflessness? Unity and understanding or depression and desperation?

Adam Norris

Cops are retarded

They think just because they have a badge that they are the almighty rulers of the city. I don't just say that because most people I know say it. I say it due to my experiences in dealing with them. Like last night which was my most recent run in wiht them. I was sitting on the corner of Boradway and Osbourne (on the corner that most flaggers / squeegeers call big island) flagging when a cop car pulled up to me. The moment he put the window down he told me to 'get the fuck up and leave the corner'. He never thought ot use manners and just ask politely. I was treated as though I wasn't even a human being. I grabbed my backpack and was waiting for the light to turn so I could cross and he began to yell and threaten me about giving me a fine and beating me for being beligerant because I hadn't left yet. I told him I was waiting for the light. I left as soon as the light changed and went over to 'squeegee corner' of Broadway and Osbourne where my boyfriend was squeegeeing. I sat there with him for about maybe 15 minutes before the same cops pulled up right on the sidewalk in front of us. The driver (same cop that hassled me on the other corner) got out of the car and told my boyfriend to give up his squeegee and leave, so he did. Then the cop was standing right in front of me telling me to leave also. I told him fine but please step back out of my face so I can leave. He slapped me in the face with his glove. I thought he broke my nose at first he hit me so hard. He then backed up but stood exactly where he knew I was going to walk as my boyfriend had just gone in that direction. I told him (the cop) to get out of my way. By this time I was mad, obviously. There happened to be a couple guys taping up posters for some event that were walking by. The cop was about to hit me again when his partner said something from the car about witnesses and so he backed off and let me walk away. The cops have to be in my opinion the biggest gang there is. They push people around, treat them like shit and think that they are way better than anyone and the worst part is, NO ONE has enough balls to stand up for their rights against them or else they just don't know their rights. It's a sad thing.

Kristy

Where I'm coming from. 3 perspectives

I was in CFS for years. In and out of different homes. Trying to find my place in the world. Then when I got kicked out of my last home, I was living there for the longest which was 2 years. They kicked me out, out of nowhere. It was devastating. I then got put into a hotel and there, I started getting involved with Meth users. I hung around them for a few months, liked the way they all treated me, then I decided to try Meth. When I moved into my mom's. 2 weeks after I started, my dad passed away. That's when I gave up. I lost control for a year. Then I started shooting up ...

Patsy Friesen

I ended up on the street because I got kicked off of independent living and because I was selling drugs. I started using meth chronically and living under the Donald St Bridge. All I cared about was the next needle of meth and all I cared about was how I got my next hit.

Brandon

I chose to live on the street because the drugs were so good. Too good. I just had to be a part of the drug scene. Which kept me out weeks at a time. Eventually it turned into months. Then I just finally ended up living on the street. I love crystal meth so much I can never do it again. Because once I have that first shot I'll run away from my awesome life that took 15 months to put together. I'll run away from my daughter and responsibilities.

Terri-Lynn

What it's like to be homeless

At the University of Manitoba, four business students have been posing as homeless people sleeping out doors on campus for the week. To complete the role reversal, two RaY youth – Libby and Julie – went to visit the homeless students and interviewed them about their experiences as homeless people.

Libby & Julie: What are some of the obstacles you’ve been facing out here?

Students:
It’s cold. Our backs are getting sore. We put cardboard underneath us as cushioning while we sleep and we found cardboard to wall us off from the wind but it’s still uncomfortable. I don’t even think we appreciated the comforts we did have until now when we don’t have them anymore. Everything we have here had to be donated so we had to go scrounging for cardboard. A tarp and tape was given to us but when we were looking for dental floss to tie the tarp town a security guard gave us one of those mouth picks with about an inch of dental floss in it. We’re sleeping outside. We didn’t want to floss our teeth. We miss being able to think straight. You can’t get a solid night’s sleep out here and you can’t get rid of that chill once it sets in and without the sleep our brains just don’t work.

L & J: How have people been treating you?

Students:
People are pretty nice to us. Because we’re students. The experience out here doesn’t even begin to compare with the real thing. We are just getting the very basic experience of sleeping outside. Like you said, we have more food in this cart to eat than you have in your fridge. People are giving us a lot of donations which is great for you, but imagine if people would give out this type of stuff to genuine street people and not just to us because we are students. And we were actually surprised by the number of students here who came up to us and told us that they either had been homeless at one point or that they are homeless now. They just crash at their friends’ places or hang out around campus all the time. Apparently there are some students who have deals worked out with certain security guards where they just let them sleep in certain offices or student lounges – depending on who’s working that night. But the lives of street kids are way different. Peopl earen’t as nice, they don’t have things brought to them for food or warmth. I mean, the other day we had 16 coffees donated in 45 minutes. Of course they’re all frozen now but once they thaw we’ll just pop them in the microwave. Do you want a coffee?

L & J: What do you think are the differences between what you guys are living and the real thing?

Students:
The way people treat us for sure. And we have supportive people all around us, this will be over in a week. People know we’re not really homeless so they’re not mean to us. Some of the other schools have had people say that the students “living homeless” is insulting and a mockery to genuine homelessness. I think that’s partially the media spinning the situation out of control.

L & J: That’s stupid. If they think it’s insulting for you to pretend to be homeless, do they think it’s insulting when we pretend we’re not? Did you guys know each other before you started this?

Students:
No, but we’re getting really close. We’re entertaining each other by dancing to keep warm, running around in circles and then falling on the ice, we have so many inside jokes now. And last night I had one of those hot pockets but it was really big, it went on your back. So I put it inside my jacket before I went to bed. When I got up, he said it got too cold. I had put it on backwards and was heating him up the whole time, not myself.

L & J: What kind of a difference do you think you’re making?

Students:
I think it’s just a starting point. For us, for our families, our friends and all the other students. It’s great that we’re learning about the realities of street life and we’re hearing your stories and now we have stories we can talk about and because we’ve met you we can speak with vindiction about the issues that are out there. It’s encouraging me to help others more and I think the young people we can impact will impact others. It would be nice if we could impact more older people too because there are a lot of damaging opinions out there.

L & J: What do you miss most?

Students:
Taking a shower. That’s nice. My bed. Having nice clean clothes to wear. My comb.

L & J: What will you do first when this is all done?

Students:
I’m taking a shower, putting on clean clothes and going to bed. I’m going to skip showering, me and my bed need to be reacquainted as soon as possible.