I want to walk the avenues with no destination
May 10, 2025
I want to walk the avenues with no destination. I want to walk from the Bronx to the Battery with holes in my coat and holes in my heart. I want to walk past bodegas and busted hydrants and kids hopping puddles and old men rolling dice in the shade. I want my shoes to slap the gum-stained sidewalks so many times they forget what they’re made of. I want to keep walking even after the blisters split, and the blood seeps into the concrete. Maybe some pigeon’ll remember the shape of my limp.
I want to trace the subway lines with my feet—past the saxophone ghosts of 14th Street, past the drag of silence in the Canal Street tunnels, past the place in Queens where the light hits the windows just so and you think maybe God rides the 7 train. I want to stand in Times Square with my hands in my pockets, letting the tourist flashbulbs wash over me like a man trying to disappear in the brightest place on Earth. No one looks you in the eye here. That’s why I stay.
I want to fall asleep on the Staten Island Ferry and miss my stop three times. I want the salt from the harbor to crust my skin. I want to watch the Statue of Liberty shrink and swell again, like maybe freedom is just an illusion of distance.
I want to be invisible on purpose. I want to slip through this city like steam rising off a manhole cover. Maybe I’ll find a diner at 3 a.m. that doesn’t close, a waitress who doesn’t ask questions, a booth where the vinyl’s torn and the coffee tastes like burnt survival. I’ll write my name in the fog on the window and watch it vanish, and that’ll be enough. That’ll mean I was here.
I want to walk all the way to Coney Island in January, when no one’s around, and the roller coaster bones rattle in the wind like they’re remembering how to scream. I’ll throw a penny in the Atlantic and ask it for nothing in return. Just the sound of the tide pulling back, like the city breathing.
I want to find something here worth keeping. A stray dog. A song leaking from a saxophone. A glimpse of my reflection in a broken store window that doesn’t make me flinch.
I want to walk this whole damn city until it walks with me. Until the streets remember my name. Until I can finally say: I may be alone—but I belong here.