I reside in the ghetto. I simply reside there because it is
impossible to live. There is no real life in my "hood". There is the
lifeless look in the eyes of prostitutes. In this ghetto lies the dead and
broken streets filled with the pot holes the capture aborted dreams. These
streets display damaged homes that house broken families, this place is dead.
It is impossible to live. Living is thriving, and in this place there is only
survival.
This dead and cold place is a gated
community. This community is marked by gates that have strict entrance and exit
policies. These are not the gates of suburbia that are strong and beautiful,
rather these gate are wide and rusty. These gates keep us locked in the ghetto
and barred from the outside world. These gates are hopeless, dangerous, and
impassable. They let you in but they won’t let you out.
This gated community has special features;
it is the only place where playgrounds can be morphed into battlefields. This
is the only place where children have 10th grade bodies but read on 1st grade
levels. This is the only place where drugs are more mainstream than dreams.
This has to be the only place where abandoned homes have more appeal than
shelters. This ghetto is the only place where liquor stores outnumber grocery stores.
This is the place where your backseat can become someone's bed. This is, no
doubt the only place where poverty is the way of life.
This is the real "city that never
sleeps". Sirens fill the night, screams turn sweet dreams into bitter
nightmares. If you listen closely you can the sound of hope banging against the
ghetto's rusty gates as it tries to get in. Nobody really sleeps. We watch the
night grow into an endless feeling of horror and despair.
Is there a way out? They say it's through
education but the schools within the gate are more like prisons with
classrooms. Some say that hope can be found in the church, but the church is
more like a congregation of the careless. Some say it’s through hard work and
ambition, but those ideals left this community a long time ago. There is no way
through those gates, unless you tear them down.
