Pigeons or People?

I walk and flutter about

Through big city parks and Time Squares

I scrounge for the food

Dropped and tossed aside

I seem like I haven't a care

No bills to pay, free food you give

What a way for me to live.

The coat on my back

Seems to be enough

And then there's a "nest"

For the rest of my stuff.

Sometimes I'm chased after

Sometimes I'm left alone

Sometimes I wander

To find a new "home."

Hundreds don't bother me

As they walk the streets

My watchful eyes stay alert

But even they get weak.

For the hundred to one chance

A pipe might strike my head

Someone's idea of a "game"

And I wind up dead.

Was I just a pigeon

And someone played their prank?

Or was I a homeless statistic

Named Bernice or Frank?

*I have been homeless more than once. I have also fought very hard to pull myself up by my bootstraps, to rise above that and help others who find themselves in these harrowing and less fortunate circumstances just as I once was. Thank you for taking the time to read my work of prose.