I'm sorry I never spoke to you on the steps. I saw you pass by every day. Sometimes you floated right past me as I was coming down. I kept hoping you'd notice me in the invisible cloak. I remember when you came home running with the $20 bill in your pocket, and I knew it wasn't real. I should have told you. I wish we could have listened together to the songs ringing through your Walkman. I should have whispered through the whirling vortices of trash as wind whipped off the river. I knew you'd make it out. But you still needed— Needed, nee—