Life.

Born into a bad neighborhood? Good luck because once you are born, you’re born into a cycle that the government places on you. Have fun making it out of the projects or the hood and the ghetto. Ive first hand seen what living that life does to you. I have friends trying to make it out but the only opportunities they are given are selling drugs or gangbanging. Even my father. Started smoking at age fifteen, and is still continuing. It’s different if you are born in Plainfield or Romeoville. You are treated with respect from the begging. No mistreatment. No issue. No discrimination. You are shown pride when you say you are from a fairly wealthy neighborhood. If you switch the roles and say you from Pilsen, Little Village, or Cicero you are automatically judged and treated differently. Again, I have seen this first hand. I’m not claiming I am coming from one of these neighborhoods, I have family that does. My Tia Jacky, her two kids, in the middle of a drive by. Then my Tia Lisi. Telling her younger sister Mindy that something is wrong with her so Lisi can take the medication. Lisi’s daughter, Thali. Fourteen drinking, parties, smoking. My mother. Pregnant by twenty-one by a Cicero  gangbanger. She never got to finish school and all she wanted it better for me. This is where the cycle begins again. I’m starting to fail her, smoking, drinking, staying out late, bad grades, disrespecting my body. Everything that I’ve done has had a negative impact on her. I’ve taken so many years, so many smiles, so much time off of her life.