Suffering -- N Broad Street

N Broad Street, Philadelphia PA

Description

There is a kind of suffering in North Philadelphia. A kind of loneliness. It's the kind of pain that's hard to shake, because part of you doesn't want to leave it behind. There is a little part of you that likes sorrow. It must be what you deserve. Today I watched a man on the subway beg for change. He was walking up and down the aisle shaking. He begged me, and I think he might have been crying, for a quarter. I didn't have one. He hated me for it, and I kind of hated myself too. All I could think when I arrived at my stop, all I could think of as I left the station and walked to work, all I could think the rest of the day: Did we create this suffering? Or is it inevitable?