on a corner, and cold

When I was a child, I got sick. I waited on the corner of our cul-de-sac, wrapped in a blanket; waiting for my dad to come home (wanting to be the first to show him my swollen tonsils, to be taken care of, protected). I knew he'd come home, I knew the path he'd take.

I was barefoot, waiting on a corner on a chilly autumn night, wrapped in a blanket. I was sick. I was cold, but I knew that I was secure, protected. The world was my father. Nothing felt threatening. It was the neighborhood, the street, the house I was born into. Everything enveloped my in a protective light. (I fell asleep waiting for him there).

Later, when I was older, he dropped me off to wait on another corner, wrapped in a blanket. It was winter now, and he sent me out to be a sign for my brothers and my sister, who were following behind, to keep them from making a wrong turn at a difficult intersection.

I don't remember why, but again, I am barefoot. I'm older now, and I'm in a strange neighborhood. I'm more afraid than I was then. Sickness isn't so charming, the cold more biting. I clench my fists into the folds of the blanket, and shrink into it, pulling it tight across my shoulder to keep out the wind snaking down the nape of my neck. My father's gone on ahead and out of necessity, I am alone now. Alone and cold.

There are people on the streets, but they are strangers to me. Rushing by, just lights and metal and lines on the pavement. And the others, fumbling for gas money for a brief moment before they disappear back into the ebb and flow of traffic. Or the homeless ones, tattered and dirty and huddled together for conversation and warmth. I feel closest to them. How soon I feel alone, permanently, because now I feel like I'm one of them -- homeless, cold, barefoot in a blanket. I want to huddle with them -- but I can't.

I can't because I'm waiting. I need to stand alone so they'll see me. I watch for them, but I don't know if I'll see them -- there's so many strangers, so many passing cars.

"What if I don't see them?" I cried, before he drove away in the twilight, "I'll be all alone."

"Wait on the corner," he calls to me. "It will be alright. They will find you."

And then he was gone.

This world is a stranger to me, and I wonder if I've been left behind. The only thing that envelops me now is this blanket, the words "they'll find you", and the knowledge that I have a purpose.