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It was getting late. I didn't know what to do with myself so I paced back and forth on the sidewalk outside of the local dives. I couldn't go home if I wanted.

It was warm and the smell of pizza haunted the air. It stirred me. Taunted me. When I passed I couldn't help but glance through the window and covet.

"You got a smoke man?" some drunk asked. I didn't. I kept to myself and walked on, back and forth, back and forth.

I wondered if I would find a bed for the night. I wondered if some other man had found mine. My bed. My home. My family. That all seemed imagined now. It might have been. It wasn't now.

I was hungry.

That goddamned pizza.

i gave up on it and leaned against the brick.

"Hey man," the drunk said again. "I asked you a damn question."

"I don't have a cigarette."

A couple was walking up to us. No, eventually passing us. They smiled. Laughed. Hand in hand. I was so hungry.

It had been days.

The couple came closer. I was so damned hungry.

I needed to eat.

"Excuse me ma'am," I said, "do you think you could spare a few bucks so I could just grab a bite?"

She recoiled. I sometimes forgot what i looked like now. "Ewww, f**king gross!" She said and dug herself into her boyfriends armpit. He wrapped his arm tight around her.

"Hey buddy, back off the lady."

"I'm just hungry. I didn't mean any..."

He stepped toward me releasing the girl safely behind him. "I said back off scumbag."

He shoved me. I fell back against the wall. My pockets spilled. Fifteen cents. A safety pin. My pocket knife.

"He's got a knife!" the girl said.

The man jumped back. "Whoa, whoa! Calm down buddy! Police!" The man looked up and down the road, then to his girl. "Babe, call the cops! This guy's lost his damn mind!"

"No, I said, trying to get back to my feet and holding everything I owned in the world. "No, I'm just hungry. Never mind, I didn't mean..."

"Drop the weapon!" a voice said behind me. "Drop the weapon and get on the ground!"

Police.

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