It felt like we were stepping out of a coming-of-age fantasy

An assault on my senses, the sensation was too much to bear.

We walked into the cracked pavement that was washed under the sun

My skin was crawling, and I was burning.

 

The roads were narrow as I drove down the steep suburban streets

of a neighborhood that used to be nice, once upon a time

Run by the rats of the street and the roaches

that parents couldn’t seem to fumigate from their homes,

these pests take form in adolescents and then deadbeat adults.

We chase the emptiness with different forms of poison

because we know that this is a cycle, and we don’t want to go through it again.

 

There is no purpose in this community anymore;

People die young, and grow up even sooner

Little adults fill the shapes of stooped-headed 12 year olds who run away,

who are dragged away,

and who ultimately become trapped.

 

The same thing happens every time

We know what to expect and we know,

We know it’s never going to end, because it never has.

Whenever we finally spiral back down, that’s when the lows

become just a little bit longer

The universe gives us that much more time to decide that it’s not worth it,

before life inflates us back up to a high,

artificial as a chemical,

and up there in the sky, it only takes a straw

And my back is broken.

 

Every woven moment was fed into this web of a childhood,

that ended as soon as we stayed home alone,

an offender down the road

As soon as her mama got a handsy boyfriend

who was believed over her

As soon as the words of her mama

became laced with venom,

directed purely toward the mass of cells that is little more to her

than a broken condom.

Bitterness is injected into the youth of the area,

crack babies in the form of corruption and isolation.

 

We never had a chance.