Like A Concentration Camp

October 2007



My name is Kenneth G. Donnelly and I was born July 3, 1967. Do you know what they called that summer? They called it the summer of love.

Turning 40 was easy. Thinking about turning 40 was the hard part! I dreaded it for years.
You know what I wanted for my 40th birthday? I wanted to weigh 145 lbs. I wanted to be physically fit. I almost made it. My 40th birthday came and went with no notice by anyone at all, and I was a little sad about that, but mostly I was just relieved. Thank god I didn’t have to look at those black balloons you see around offices sometimes when someone turns 40. Over the hill!

Over the hill my ass!

I can’t tell you if I made my goal weight because I no longer have a bathroom scale and the reason I no longer have a bathroom scale is because I no longer have a bathroom. In July of 2006 I became a homeless man. Two days shy of my 39th birthday I lost everything. Hell I’m sitting here writing this in a public library, and I’m wearing some other guy’s clothes. The only things I have that are truly mine now are my thoughts.

I wrote the above on July 24th of 2007. It’s October 11, 2007 now, and I have been living on the street since August. It turns out I got my birthday wish after all. I have been walking from Largo to Clearwater and from Clearwater back to Largo each day since September 18th, that’s the day my bus pas expired, and since I haven’t been working I haven’t been able to get a new one. I’m only eating one meal a day at the St. Vincent De Paul soup kitchen. I’m hungry all the time now, really hungry. On the bright side I am now so thin my pants no longer fit. They literally fall down if I let them. I have never been this thin in my adult life. I have the whole concentration camp Jew thing going on.
I always wanted to be thin, and I always wanted to die thin, but man I sure would love a slice of Pizza or a Dunkin Donut. Strange how it gets a hold of you, it’s a feeling you can’t shake. You have to eat.
I haven’t shaved in so long I have a beard now. It’s a bit too salt and pepper, I got the look of a hot Hollywood director, Spielberg or Lucas or Francis Ford Coppola. The gray used to drive me insane, but for some reason I’m okay with it now. Maybe cause I’m so far into my own world.

KGD

October 11, 2007