Hunger rages through me, scraping and clawing at my gut and my chest and my throat and every part of my body. I feel exhausted. I feel dizzy. But I force myself to keep going on under the white-hot sun. I would like for nothing more than to lay down in some grassy meadow and go to sleep, perhaps forever, but I have people to take care of.

There is dust under my bare feet. Dust all around me. Dust inside me. Dust in my breath and my blood and my mind and my soul. I breathe dust. I cough dust. Dry and hazy into the heat around me.

I am seventeen years old but I'm tall. I have a strong jaw. A bit of stubble. All of this causes me to look older than I am. But it still has not helped me in finding a job. A tossed out and uneducated runaway has no place in this economy. 

That is why I'm begging for scraps from the passers by with their polished shoes and expensive phones and bejeweled phone cases that drift by this busy street. I spent hours and hours forcing my aching feet forwards towards the next disinterested passers by and I will spend hours more doing exactly this. 

It's an aching existence. A hungry existence. A lonely existence. It withers my heart and chokes my soul to see the way people look at me. They way they sneer and turn away. It kills me on the inside to see the level of complete disinterest they have in my misery. They have products to buy. Things to afford. No time to help me out. They couldn't care less. And I have to deal with the fact that they couldn't care less for hours upon hours upon hours. 

But I cannot give up. I need to gather as much money and food as I can. Because my children rely on me. They're not really my children. They're fellow children that ended up on the streets in some way or another. But they're young. They're sweet. They depend on me. I'm the closest thing to a parent they have. 

It really breaks my heart to see Kalkita, Tyave, Monan and Stelli go hungry. It breaks my heart to see them having to beg for food and water and money when they should be in school. It breaks my heart to worry about them, and worry about them, and never stop worrying about them. But I have to. Because for some reason or another I love them. 

For some reason or another humans have this need to arrange themselves into groups and communities no matter what. It's the most beautiful thing, love. It's what has kept us alive all this time. What has kept the heartbeat of humanity going. But these days love has no power. And it's hard, bearing that. 

I walk up to a lady in a gleaming white blouse with embroidered flowers. 

"Can you spare a few coins for my little siblings?" I ask. She looks at my torn, frayed, ragged shirt and my lack of shoes. She says nothing and keeps on walking. 

I walk up to a man in a stuffed leather jacket. 

"Can you spare a few coins for my little siblings?" He looks down his nose at my skinny, shivering form and says no. 

I walk up to a man with a new, gleaming backpack. 

"Can you spare a few coins for my little siblings?" He looks at my empty hands and walks on. 

I walk up to a woman with a bright pink translucent scarf. 

"Can you spare a few coins for my little siblings?" She gives me a few coins which I quickly hide away in the cloth bag inside my shirt. They're not much. A few dollars. Not enough. Not nearly. 

I walk up to a man with his hair styled in spikes. 

"Can you spare a few coins for my little siblings?" He sneers at me and walks on. 

I walk up to a girl eating an ice cream cone. 

"Can you spare a few coins for my little siblings?" She says sorry and looks sad but gives me nothing. 

I keep going on, as the sun bends its arc through the sky and the shadows cast by the giant buildings all around us get longer and longer. I am exhausted but it doesn't matter. The exhaustion is more in my soul than my body. My body is tired, yes, but not abjectly. My soul is abjectly drained. The exhaustion of having been denied again and again and again. Of being reminded again and again what my place is in this society. That my place is nothing in this society. 

I think about all of us. Not just my personal family but all the other pods of street kids that walk the busy streets trying to beg or find odd work or occasionally sell knickknacks. We all are desperate for normalcy, and organize ourselves into pods each lead by an older teenager, a sort of makeshift parent. They are all my family. All of them. We all suffer together, we work together, we dream together. And I wish I could save them. I wish I could save everyone. 

Eventually the sun is not as burning hot anymore. Shadows glaze over the streets and the sky is a darker blue. The streets themselves thin out. And there are barely any people left. I keep going to them, nonetheless. Begging for whatever they can give me. But eventually even the steady trickle of pedestrians slows to a stop. And I am left with only empty streets and fading light. 

This world feels almost dead. Like a ghost world. The world feels alive again. Like dawn has just awoken. I can breathe again. My heart thrums with dread and soars with hope. I walk down the littered, dirty streets until I find the telephone pole my family is supposed to meet under. I wait there until I see my kiddos arriving from all corners of the street. 

Monan, a girl right now though she isn't always, with her dark, curly hair and large, sad eyes and wide, round face. She's coming from the left intersection, moving slowly, wide eyes searching. She's just fourteen. She ran away from an abusive father and has found a new father in me. She's a dreamer, a singer, and pretends to be stronger than she is. 

Kalkita, with her dark, dark eyes and large eyelashes and thin face. The wind is in her hair as she moves up from the south. She is only fifteen. She's a sister and a daughter and a friend to all of us. She has so much burning anger and nowhere to put it. She loves the wind and the clouds and the sky. She was thrown out of her home for failing to meet expectations. 

Trayve is thirteen years old. He's coming up from behind me. He's a tiny little thing. A scared little thing. He lets people walk over him too much. He lets the ways people talk and act get to him too much. It's so hard keeping his spirits somewhat up. Hard but worth it. I don't know why he's here. He never talks about it. 

Stelli is coming behind Monan. Stelli is tiny, with her thick curls matting frizzy in her hair. She has sparkling green eyes and the most adorable smile I have ever seen. She's nine. The youngest street kid I've ever seen. She claims that her parents loved her, that they still love her. And I let her believe it. It doesn't matter. She's our baby and we love her. 

We come together and we sit down. The pavement is still hot underneath us. Hot and hard and rough. There is so much tiredness in everyone's eyes. Tiredness and hunger. We cannot rest here long. We have to leave before the police come looking for us. But we can rest. Finally. 

We don't speak for a bit of time. No words are needed as we can all read so infinitely much in each other's eyes. Finally Stelli opens up her mouth,

"Tell me about the Sky World," she says, voice small and hopeful. 

And so I tell them the story again, in little bits and pieces, about the world in the sky where everything is plenty, everything is safe, everything is free. It's hope as much as it is strength. I sigh after finishing the story. It's a story they've all heard many times. A story they love. 

"When the rich people try to get into the Sky World," Trayve starts, "I'm going to smile so hard at them from the inside." 

"My favourite part of the story is when the Sky World will descend," Kalkita speaks breathlessly, eyes scanning the clouds, "and make the Ground World beautiful like it. I can't wait until that happens." 

"And out spirits will all descend with it, and live again," Monan smiles softly. We are more spirit than flesh already. We are spirits just aching to go up up up and never come down again until we can all come down together. 

But the pull of the Ground World on our flesh is too strong to ignore. 

"I hate the Ground World," Stelli bares her teeth, "it's so loud and mean and dirty." 

"It sure is dirty," I agree, "but when I see you, Stelli, when I see all of you, everything around fades." 

"I wish things could fade," Trayve replies, "like my fear of the police." 

"The police won't get us. They're barely anywhere," Monan replies to calm him down. 

"Still guys, it's better safe than sorry." And Kalkita is right. We should be moving into the alleyways by now. Moving into the places where the police don't check. We've all seen entire streets of kids go missing. We all know what happens when the cops think anyone is bothering the rich people too much, intruding on their space. We've all seen the bodies riddled with bullet holes and left in the parks and streets as a warning to the rest of us. 

We all get up and start walking into the small, crowded alley filled with garbage. We go to the very middle of the alley where streetlights don't reach in. Where there are no building lights. Where no-one will see us in the dark. Where police officers won't find us. And we find the piles of newspapers and cardboard boxes we've artfully arranged to be some form of shelter. 

"I had a friend who said that if we could have guns too the police would be scared of us for a change," Monan wonders. 

"I bet I'd be great at using a gun," Trayve smiles. 

"Even we could make people give us money!" Stelli exclaims. And she's right. We could. 

"That would be good," I smile at everyone softly.

"Where can we get guns, do you guys think?" Kalkita has a mischievous look in her eyes and I have to shut the conversation down before it gets too dangerous. Thankfully I am able to. 

We hide under piles of newspapers and cardboard and drift off to sleep at the edges of the alley's concrete, trying and failing to ignore the chill of the night. It's miserable.