We are a part of these streets. The cobblestones have absorbed too much of our blood for it to be any other way. When the gutters run with rain and despair we sit on our stoops and our curbs and wallow in secrecy, counting our misfortunes. We have long since learned to mistrust the good times and live alongside the bad. We have long since learned to use favors as money and to take nothing without question. In this life, we were unlucky, and we strive to keep what we started with.
My name is Kid Blink and I have loved more than you would have ever thought possible. Try me. I have loved the smell of fresh newsprint and I have loved my ink stained fingers, I have loved walking and I have loved falling. I have loved losing and I have loved winning and I have loved watching. I have loved the ice on the ground and the cold in the air. I have loved the cuts on my fingers and the bruises in the sky. I have loved my laughter and I have loved my tears and I have loved my words. I have loved love and embraced hate and fought for each. I'm a street rat, an orphan, homeless and neglected, but I have loved family and I have loved friends, I have loved the stars and I have loved the music played in my dreams. I have loved the sidewalks on which I've slept and the fists with which I've fought and the coins and spit that has been thrown at me. I have loved the days as they've come and the nights as they've left and the mornings and evenings in between. I have loved girls and I have loved boys but I will never love again. From this night on, the world is cold to me. You left, and that was the end of it.
Crying dogs and screaming children, a heavy cloud of smoked opium hanging over another lifeless body. Broken bottles next to the burned out shell of a tenement, its former inhabitants sinking into their despair and the ashes of their possessions. Through the stink of the thick, humid summer air I begin to shiver. From this broken window, I can see the world.
But I can't see you.
And that's what hurts the most.