Excerpt II

From "Homeless"

I wake again in an unfamiliar room. It’s dark. I’m on a soft mattress. There’s dusky blue light seeping in from behind the heavy drapes to my left. I sit up in bed and realize I feel better than I’ve felt in months. I smile. I’m dressed in a soft, cotton nightie. Swinging my legs off the bed, I encounter a pair of cushy purple slippers adorned with yellow pansies. I slip my feet in and smile wider. I flick on the lamp by my bed and look around the room. All the furniture is a deep and rich mahogany; the bed I’m sitting on is a four-poster covered in a butter-yellow spread. The carpet looks creamy and thick. I pad quietly over to the window and draw back the gold drapes. A sliding glass door is before me, leading out to a small balcony. I step out.

The summer night air is soft, warm. I look out into the distance and my breath is momentarily taken away. It’s as if all of Central Park and Manhattan is before me. The sun is setting in vivid streaks of ambers, maroons and flashing gold against the backdrop of the deepening azure sky and the winking lights of the Manhattan skyscrapers. The tips of the tallest trees are lit with the flames of the dying sun; the depths of the park enveloped in gloom. From this high, even the ever-present din of the city is muted; lovely almost in its ceaseless rushing. A waterfall of sound made to caress the ears.

A sudden color catches my eye. The dual lights of the Empire State Building flashes on. Blue and white these past few summer weeks. Soon to be blue, white and red as July nears. The warm breeze plays lightly with my hair and kisses my bare shoulders.

I lean with my elbows on the balcony for countless minutes, drinking in the beauty. My life in New York has been one of heightlessness. I am constantly grounded, drawn to the earth by my poverty and wretchedness. Some mornings, I wake up burrowed beneath newspapers, old jackets; entrenched in the very earth, it seems. Momentary respite is gained from crossing bridges, but even then, I often feel the city looming luridly above me, threatening to swallow me whole. Here on this balcony, I feel as if I own the city. All of its wonders and filth and degradation and humanity and noise and splendor. It’s all mine.