I Forgot To Tell Him

 I did something wrong the other day. I wrote a poem that was racist against white people. Poor white people. I showed it to a man in my life who is Caucasian and he was hurt by it. He said he wasn't, but he said it felt like a punch in the stomach because it mentioned things like cockroaches in a pejorative way. He mentioned how he knows poverty and it's not a joke.I forgot to tell him though.I forgot to tell him I lived in an apartment in New York City with a Hispanic family once. There were little baby cockroaches in the kitchen sink. They scared the shit out of me. I had run away from home then in my twenties. I went from my opulent existence in the Michigan suburbs to a small place with bugs and a spicy smell I could not ignore. I forgot to tell him I know what it's like to feel like a cockroach.And another time I spent three months in New York living in hostels and hotels. A different one every day. I had a good job but was essentially homeless. I didn't have to worry about eating, but sleeping I had to worry about. That's as close as I've come to understanding homelessness I think. One night there was nowhere to go, everything was full and my feet were tired and I couldn't walk anymore in my pointy black leather boots. I called hotels.com and they had one room left in New York City. It was five hundred dollars a night. I took it. I wasn't poor, but I was stupid. And I wasn't going to spend the night on the street.  When I came home I asked my dad how much his new dishwasher cost. He said four hundred dollars. It's as if I spent that night in a dishwasher. The five hundred dollar room had rooms in it. A navy blue living room and a peach colored bedroom. I stayed up all night but rested my feet. I watched Frasier re-runs. I forgot to tell him I know what it's like to be alone.I once lived in a beautiful high-rise apartment at Columbia University with a rooftop restaurant and it was infested with cockroaches everywhere in the laundry room etc. Many rooms had them too, mine luckily was high enough to not have bugs. I was just lucky there were no cockroaches in my apartment. I forgot to tell him I'm just lucky. I'm lucky I've never been poor.I forgot to tell him that I've broken bread with homeless people in an inner city psych ward. One man who sat at my table at the mental hospital, I later saw getting food from a dumpster on the outside.I forgot to tell him mental poverty, losing one's mind, might be as bad as losing all your money. I don't know. I don't want to know.I forgot to tell him about the last time I was manic.  I was in my thirties and in New York City again and I ended up getting picked up by a Pakistani cab driver who was creepy in the middle of the night. It was no wonder he thought I was for sale, I was wearing a red paisley bikini top with a sheer blue skirt. He gave me a cigarette to smoke and I blew the smoke from the window thinking I was finally free. I ended up in a padded room for two days after that.  I forgot to tell him that I am far from perfect. That I constantly do the wrong thing.I forgot to tell him I'm sorry sometimes for who I am.He asks me if I'm happy. I forget to tell him, yes, I am because you ask me if I am.nina