My name is Darilyn
She left home because she didn’t want her family to suffer because of her. Of course, her face has graced missing person reports and social media searches since then…but she is oblivious to the repercussions of her actions.
She’s worn the same clothes for three years. No matter the season or weather, she guards them vigilantly, sleeping in them – even her boots – in her makeshift cardboard lean-to under the roadway at 40th Street and Tenth Avenue.
She doesn’t beg or go to soup kitchens. She only goes to shelters when the police make her go, when winter temperatures make the heartless fear the political repercussions of letting the voiceless die so visibly. She hears the voice of her mother, smug, vain and embarrassed by their relatives that never worked, opting for food stamps and Medicaid. She goes to the alleys behind restaurants to search the dumpsters. She sits in the same spots on different streets in midtown. The passers-by grow accustomed to her presence and some give her sandwiches, fruit, coffee or water. But she never asks.
She doesn’t have a sign. She just sits and reads one of the books she took when she left her life behind as her mind began to seep away: Forever, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, I Will Love You Forever. She brought with her the first to remember herself; the second to remember her husband; the third to remember both her mother and her son. But slowly, she has forgotten the who and the why. Now they are just books that make her cry.