Sitting in the subway station, I let myself rest for a moment. This was my third night sleeping in the station and I knew that it probably wouldn’t be the last. There’s nothing particularly wrong with the 5th Ave station. It’s quiet. Well, as quiet as a train station can be. And it isn’t the dirtiest of the stations in Manhattan. I dozed, watching the rats scatter across the floors with each passing train.
This is my life, I thought. I’d said many times leading up to this moment that I would rather be homeless in New York City than live anywhere else. Here was the proof. The cold wind from the outside was creeping in, seeping into my bones. I left my almost-slumber and stepped onto the train in front of me.
It had become a routine of mine, in a way. The easiest way to get a few minutes of sleep at night was to ride each line until its last stop, connecting to one after the other, until the sun rose again. The good thing about this was that there was always company. Late-night tourists, drunkenly stepping onto the platform after a night of revelry. Early morning commuters getting ready to attend their 4 am shifts. And, of course, my fellow homeless.
I was starting to become familiar with some of their faces. There was a gaunt elderly man that slept in the Chambers St. station. He wore a soft grey beanie that covered his face as he slept. He snored, but not in the way that a father would after a hefty Thanksgiving dinner. It was an aching snore. One begging just to exist somewhere in a lack of sleep and satiation.
The body takes what it can get.
I’d wondered my whole life why so many homeless people weren’t mentally well. It was a simple “chicken or the egg” question, I suppose. Were they unhinged before, or was it a result of their displacement? The true answer is dependent on the individual case. But, after going through sleep deprivation, I could confirm the latter as a possibility.
I’d never understood the privilege of sleep before existing without it. We all think that sleep is a right. Imagine having insomnia without a bed to calm it. Imagine the fear of losing any small possessions that you might have left if you let your guard down for too long. Try sleeping on a bench — segmented into small, rear-sized spaces — for a night.
In the beginning, it’s kind of fun. It feels like the first all-nighter you pulled as a teenager. Your brain starts producing more adrenaline. You feel high as a kite for the following twelve hours. Then night two comes and your mind starts to slow.
After a few days, you get desperate for sleep. I’m a writer; my work takes creativity. I can’t explain the utter lack of productivity that came with living days without sleep. I did sleep, I guess. My body made sure of that. After two full days without it, I started noticing bits of time escape me. An experience called microsleeps.
My hours spent working in the Midtown Public Library became sprinkled with head bobs as I slipped in and out of sleep. I couldn’t tell if the people around me noticed. I knew that I didn’t look particularly “homeless” in the traditional sense. I had a gym membership so that I could get hot showers. I rented a storage unit for my wardrobe. I ate, though it wasn’t often. But maybe just my lack of sleep would tip someone off.
When I walked into Starbucks for the third morning in a row, I saw the baristas’ eyes follow me to the counter. I tried to look as chipper as possible, ignoring the pounding behind my eyes. I was wholly recognizable: same faded jean jacket, same beaten black converse, same round, wire-framed glasses. I changed up my order to make myself less conspicuous, but their eyes still followed.
If I got too desperate for sleep, I went to Central Park. Its trails are large and winding, leaving plenty of little spaces to hide away for some shuteye in the morning rays. The problem here came as the seasons changed. As soon as November hits, the cold makes the park completely unbearable to sleep in. The body takes what it can get.
So, that bathroom break turns into a thirty-minute nap on a public toilet. That is, until the woman in the next stall wakes you for refusing to hand her toilet paper. But the nap was nice, for the time it existed. It was a reminder of what good sleep could feel like.
On the fifth or sixth day without a bed, I found a warm place to not sleep. There are a few different 24-hour McDonalds in Manhattan to choose from. Some are more pleasant to the homeless than others. This one was lovely, allowing me to stay for as many hours as I wanted. I worked, or tried to work, surrounded by the usual cast of characters. Homeless people, late-night tourists, and smoking teenagers shuffled in and out.
As the night deepened, it got quieter. Tables filled with sleeping people. Their lingering smell only covered by the aroma of freshly made french fries. I couldn’t help but smile at the sight of it. So many of these people hadn’t had a warm place to sleep until that moment.
I let myself rest my head for a minute, taking in the warmth of the fluorescent lights beaming from above. The energy was calm and comforting in this McDonalds — not a sentence that I thought I would say, but one that makes sense to me now. I now find beauty in so many things that I would have scoffed at before. Like, for example, the ability of the human body to survive.
I’d watched it. Not even just in myself, but in the homeless existing around me. As I rested in the 5th Ave station one night, a man with a putrid smell dug through the trashcan to my left. I watched him, as he mumbled to himself disappointingly. Then, he squeaked with glee. I saw him pull a container of leftovers from the can. He brought the container with him to a seat only a couple over from mine.
He nodded and said a quick hello to me, before opening the container and beginning his meal. Shrimp scampi, I believe. My eyes followed the shrimp carcasses as he picked them out, one by one, placing them in the plastic bag that once surrounded the container. Once finished, he brought the scampi up to his face and began to eat. Not with his hands. No, he ate with his mouth directly. It was something that I’d only seen in a comedic setting: a grown human eating food like an animal, face first.
But it wasn’t funny. It was disturbing and heartbreaking. It made me sick to my stomach, listening to him slurp the noodles into his mouth excitedly. It wasn’t the slurping that made me sick, but rather the understanding that he hadn’t thought to use his hands at all. He was so hungry that the energy it would take to use his hands was too much. It shook me to my core. I got up and entered the next available train.
That sickness followed me onto the train, though. The thought of the lack of humanity displayed by that man will follow me my entire life, I supposed. I pitied myself as homeless, but I had no reason to. My homelessness was not the same as his — at least, not yet. It scared me to think of my moment of desperation, as it felt ever-looming.
But that’s what I signed up for. The cold, the sleepless nights, all of it. That’s what “chasing your dreams” looks like. The life of a starving artist, homeless and exhausted. It’d romanticized it my entire life, reading books written by rich men about the struggle. Romanticized it enough to use the most famous line that Allen Ginsberg ever wrote as the title for this piece.
Though that romance has died, I’ve found myself in the scariest place I’ve ever been and I haven’t given up. Inadvertently, I have discovered myself: a woman with grit, courage, and tenacity. I still wander the streets of New York, but I know more of myself and the world than I ever did from the comfort of my bed. For this, I’m grateful.
