I walked outside in the cold with only a jacket to keep me warm

Although it wasn’t midnight just yet the streets were silent

I looked outside the bars and saw two lights

Whizzing past each other with great speed

To get home no doubt

I ran past the cold seeking something worth looking at

The lamps that surrounded looked like yellow moons

As if they were in my orbit

The dirt they accumulated forming craters

Most who examined these lights wouldn’t see it but

That was a trait received to those who didn’t receive much

In apartments too small to live and rent that was too high to conceive

All we had were imaginations

Roaming through less than spectacular roads and turning them into worlds

Worlds we created in spite of the reality we lived in

Broken glass bottles and trash left by others paved our streets

Abandoned shopping carts and loose change were our treasures

There was nothing better than finding a dollar another left behind just for us

We weren’t poor but we weren’t rich

We survived just barely with the paycheck of one parent

And our own creativity

The cold hit me once again and as midnight struck I walked home

I didn’t find anything particularly amazing tonight but

Ill have the rest of my life to make something out of nothing

It was alchemy

To make a cruel reality into a life worth living

Turning our despondency into triumph

Rising from our slum and carrying on

Tomorrow I will find a new place to live

A new fragment of my mind to reside