Love [First Draft]

The concrete beneath the worn soles of my stolen shoes is cracking with every step I take. They have no meaning, just like those apathetic business men with their stiff blank colored ties that sneer as they pass. They think their thin, barely creased dollar bills make them more important than me, that maybe because I live on the street I have no feelings, like I’m some kind of mutt of the human race. But they’re wrong; we were all born into the same dank, seemingly innocent air.

My body cries silently with want for the pills that lead me to a psychedelic never land as I slowly glide away from the main drag of the uncaring city. Blue, white, oval, round, crushed, whole, it makes no difference, as long as its devilish power is in my control. I turn into a long narrow passage way, much like the one Moses created with his bare hands and I am home, excited to fill my aching body with dirty needles and my nose with tiny white devils.

I take the first hit. My nose immediately throbs, burns, and it is in that one second of fiery blissful release that I notice the little mal-nourished puppy waging his stubby tail by my side. I reach out my shaking calloused hand and softly stroke his matted yellow fur. His shining chestnut eyes reach into my chest and wrap my heart in a haze of love; an ironic sort of love that is given and taken willingly by strangers.  Suddenly, my breath slacks and my dilated eyes fill with a wetness I haven’t experienced in so long.

As he lies his bony body next to me, resting his head on my lap, I wonder what it’s like to have an innocent mind. Would I walk these black tarred streets with a smile plastered on my face? Would my heart flutter with the flowing wind, even though my mother sold me to save her own selfish soul? Or would I simply believe she did it for the best?

I, for the first time in my life, feel at peace.