No one tells me what to do. These streets are mine. I make eye contact with everyone that passes by. I have no job and nothing to look forward to. I feel free like this always living in the present. I wouldn't trade my freedom for nothing. There's nothing larger than freedom. I treat everyone with love because the Buddhists say we are all one being. I give money to every homeless person crouched in a puddle on the street cuz I could end up like him one day. I pay for my friend's dinner because one day it might get paid back to me and I like to owe no one nothing. I get my money the same way everyone does. I collect cans from the trash on the streets and sell them for 30 cents a piece. And then I find furniture up on the upper east side where all the rich folks live and fix it up a bit and sell it back to them. They don't know nothing about furniture or they'd fix it up themselves. Knowledge is freedom too. Most people are too lazy to learn anything so they pay me to learn for them. Those people have money but they're not free. Clearly since they're paying me to sell trash to them. One day as I was picking up cans on Broadway I felt a tap on my shoulder. Dressed up in silver bracelets with white flowers in her hair was my girlfriend from high school. Staring me down like a generous Angel. She asked me if I'd like to get coffee with her. If you want me to, yes She carried me to a cafe on a hilltop village and ordered me a coffee. How'd you like it? She asked. Black I said so she removed the milk and sugar. Where've you've been? Same as always. On the road? Something like that. Just as evasive as always. Well what do you want to know? She leaned over to wipe something off my face. I stood naked like a crownless king. She sipped on me for a few hours in a time where it felt like none had passed. A little suspension. I would have told her I loved her then and there but I couldn't risk it. I couldn't risk my nothing in case it turned into something, which could turn again into nothing. But if she asked me to marry her I would do it even if it meant nothing would be lost forever. Remember that time we went to that diner on 23rd? How could I forget. We spent all night spinning coins and telling the future. That's not how I remember it. Well how do you remember it? You left me at the diner to see your no good friends. I did? And I was sitting there all alone with a tall stack of coins. I've never seen her so mad. Shes all grown up now. She's got wrinkles under her eyes when she screams. She picked up her purse and said she'd pay it back to me if she got the chance. But Ive paid my dues. I paid them all and one thousand more. I had nowhere to go so I walked to the giant Greek church on 31st. In glorious blue and white paraded a street festival. I sipped on a few beers and watched as the little Greek men danced with their beautiful horselike wives. In and out and around. I stared at them while they danced and tried not to cry. I didn't have nowhere to be so I went home. I sold all my grandmas jewelry I inherited and bought a plane ticket to Utah. Nothing and no one is bigger than me so I left the city to find something that's bigger than anything I know. I learned about those salt plains from a postcard I found at the second hand store on Broadway. I couldn't imagine anything looked like that til I saw it. All big and all white. Like a genuine heaven. I had to see it for myself to make it mine. Wait scratch that. I wanted to see something that could never be mine. Not that I think witnessing something could mean I possess it. I walked down every street of this goddamn city and it was mine. But that is because it made me alive. Those salt plains only kill you. Nothing can stay alive there. Not even me. Hopefully not me. I'm not invincible but I haven't met anything that could kill me. But it's out there.