I was on my way home by train. The train's gentle rocking made me feel sleepy, despite the fact that I was standing with what felt like a building in the bag on my back. I turned slightly to reduce some of the pain in my shoulder and saw the door at the end of the car. An obviously homeless man walked through the door. He was dressed in a dirty heavy coat. He dragged a bag that looked thirty times as heavy as mine. He asked people for spare change in the polite, experienced voice of a person who had done this before. I glanced down as I did a quick check of my pockets, hoping for spare change to give him that wouldn't leave me short for the rest of the week. I came up empty and lifted my head just as his path crossed mine. Shrugging apologetically, I told him I had no change, expecting him to move through the door next to me and continue going to the next cars. However, he stood and stared at me, saying something quietly. Then I realized he was asking me to take him home. Suddenly money didn't matter that much to this man who lived in poverty without even enough money to purchase socks to stave off the chill. Not food, not clothes, not even a blanket. Just affection. I felt worse than I had done about not finding any spare change. My heart sank and I couldn't even think of the proper words to say besides "I can't, I'm sorry." He asked me, "What's wrong with my request?" The answer was on my lips before I knew it. I told him that I was not good enough for him. It was after the man had left that I thought about the answer I had given him and wondered why it felt so right to say so. I realized that I should have requested love over money or food. The fact that he could appreciate something so simple and invisible is more than I could ever have expected of myself. When the author was sleepy and tired, he saw a homeless man on the train   _  .
looking for his long-lost friend asking people for spare clothes begging passengers for some money talking about his painful experience