How can I change when you never gave me a chance? How can I find the right path when every choice I make is wrong? I never meant anything to you, but you meant everything to me. You were the one person I cared about, and looked up to. Now you are just one of the many people who just gave up on me, not caring enough to listen.


Life was never easy for me. My parents weren’t people who cared what I did or who I became. I was nothing but a nuisance to them. My father was just another drug dealer trying to make a living from nothing. How could you know that though? You never asked, never bothered to care. You act as though you’re someone special. You go around judging me as though you are perfect, and I am nothing but a stupid criminal, when you are just as bad as I am. You’re no different from me. You and I, we’re more alike than you could ever wish.


Steel bars colder than ice, a cell smaller than your closet that’s the life I live. This “room” is for the criminals. The bad people who aren’t good enough to live amongst you “civilized” people who are so perfect, and have done nothing wrong. This room tells a story. People, yes people just like you locked away in a room for years on end longing to be free. Have you ever thought about us? Of course you haven’t. We’re nothing to you.
People look at me and say, “Ya, so what. You’ve had a bad life maybe worse than mine, but that doesn’t change things. You had a choice to make something of yourself. You could’ve done something good with your life.”


The blood-curdling scream wakes me up in a cold sweat. Gasping for air I get up from the creaky twin bed smelling of despair, sadness, and unhappiness. I walk shakily to the bars of my cell reminding that I am a prisoner. A prisoner who can never be truly free of his chains pulling him back into the murky shadows.
I think back to the days when everything was good. The days when I was just another guy. I miss walking along the beach with the grainy warm sand in-between my toes with the only person who made me smile every morning; the person who made my life worth living.
Then suddenly as though being woken from a dream she was taken from me. Her warm smile that lit up the world was gone, and now the skies are cloudy, and raining as though mourning the loss of one of the most special people to be seen. She was always putting others before herself, determined to make the world a better place. That was the woman I loved. She was an angel sent from heaven to save the people about to fall into the devil’s grasp.


Bzzzzz. Bzzzzz. Bzzzzz. I jump with a start as I realize I’m not with my love, but within the devil’s grasp. I am unable to speak, unable to escape, but day by day I am getting closer and closer to freedom.
What is wrong and how do we know? Is it wrong to kill someone? What it if it was a person who killed thousands of people? Is it still wrong? To many, it’s considered heroic, if you kill someone like that you are a hero. If I killed someone like that I am a criminal. How can we ever know the difference between right and wrong when we were never taught?
Lil Chuckie has been a drug dealer since the age of nine. Is he really a criminal? It wasn’t his fault he was raised in a bad environment. You think you’re so great because you’re successful. Your life is as close to picture perfect as it can get, but what about the rest of us? What about the people who were never given the chance to become successful? You act as though the biggest problem is not being able to buy the most expensive car on the market, or because you’re clothes aren't designer. We as humans want the best things to show we are powerful, and successful. Sure that’s great if you work hard why not spend it on something you like, right? Well while you have your closet filled with clothes that you don’t even wear, people all over the world die from things like starvation and disease. We’re the lucky ones. If we’re sick we can see a doctor, and they’ll prescribe some medication and we’ll get better. Can you even begin to imagine the horrors some people face because they are terminally ill and can’t afford pain medication? Are you so selfish that you don't realize how much pain others are in? No because a new car beats the life of a human being any day right?

These people may be criminals. They may be terrible to you, but they are still better than you will ever be. They realize how difficult life is because they themselves have suffered through the pain, and just kept going. They never complained. They just did what they had to survive. Remind me again what makes you so much better than them? What would your life have been like if you grew up in an environment like Lil Chuckie’s? You probably don’t know this but Lil Chuckie was a star student. He had to work three jobs just to keep his family afloat which made it hard for him to do homework and study. His sister died when he was 7 because of a drunk driver which made him go crazy. He started to get caught up in the bad stuff in his neighborhood. He dealt drugs, smoked, but never in his life did he complain. He was strong minded, and intelligent. Imagine what he could've achieved if he was raised in a good environment. You’re lucky you have parents who care about you, a great school where there are countless opportunities. Others aren’t blessed with this.

As I shuffle down the corridors with the other “criminals”, my mind wanders off and I think to myself what would’ve happened if I had just stayed home that day. The day my life stopped and I was marked as evil. The day the one person I lived for was heartlessly killed.

A day no different from the rest. A warm April afternoon with the sun shining bright, and not a cloud to be found. It was one of most beautiful days i’d ever seen. The flowers were just blooming, kids were playing. Birds were chirping, it was almost the perfect day. It was as though I was in a storybook, but not all stories have a happy ending.
A woman with dark brown hair is walking calmly towards me with a pitcher filled with icy cold lemonade. Her dress is swishing around in the warm spring air carrying with her a smile brighter than any star in the universe. then without warning my dream turns into a nightmare. The woman is no longer smiling, but sobbing uncontrollably. Tears are streaming down her face and a small drip drip drip I turn around searching trying to find the sound. What is it? Where is it coming from? It is the woman’s tears dripping steadily onto a hard concrete floor, but wait the floor is no longer concrete. No its a canvas now, but wait its no longer a clear watery substance dripping, but a crimson red. NO NOT AGAIN NOOO she screams to the captor who is holding the painting dripping with the crimson red substance. The erie painting brings the worst memories back to me; the ones that I have tried to forget, but unable to. Now they’re being burned into my memory once more as though being branded onto my soul. The art is beautiful beyond compare, but treacherous. Let her go I scream but the captor only laughs a blood curdling laugh and says something I can’t discern from the screams of the woman now becoming louder, sharper, pleading for me to save her. I try to run to her aid to rescue her, but my feet, my feet are stuck in place unable to move. I watch her crying and pleading with the man until suddenly all is quiet. I weep silently as I realize the woman lying limp on the floor is not a stranger, but my love who has fallen into the devil’s grasp.



I imagine myself sitting under the big oak tree, the tree that would protect me from the evilest of things when I was a kid. Its wide branches shielding me from the harsh light, the tree that I would climb every summer afternoon to seek a long lost treasure chest. The branches my boat, and the ground the deadly seas. It was a tree I never thought much about. As I child it was nothing more than an object for my amusement. It was so simple yet it was everything my safe haven, treasure chest, playroom, it was everything my little mind could imagine.

I took it for granted not realizing how much it really meant until it was gone. Just like I took my life for granted just like all the other little kids too obsessed with material objects to realize the greater things in life. I constantly complained about my parents saying they were terrible and I hated them, and now sitting in this prison both mentally and physically I realize I didn’t have it so bad. Sure there were a few more rough spots than others, but I had a home as shabby as it was it was a roof over my head. I had food to eat, and I had my imagination. An imagination that would take me anywhere, an imagination where I could become anyone, be anything.

I wake up in my luxurious bed with my love standing over with me. She holds a glass of orange juice in one hand, and a plate of pancakes in the other. She smiles and puts the breakfast on the table, and walks out the door to get syrup. I rub my eyes groggily and smile as I remember it was only a dream. My parents are hard working people, and that I didn’t know a person named chuckie. I frown a little at the thought of a life like that and I vowed to be content with my life and live in the moment.