I live on 123rd St, in upper northeast DC Where (also) the sidewalks are littered with trash And gangs patrol the streets, keeping "outsiders" out of their zone Where drugs are dealt by the swings on the playground at the local elementary school And needles can be found over by the sliding board Where older brothers hide guns in their nephews’ bookbags And where you’re gunned down because someone looked at you the wrong way And you can’t even look out of your bedroom window at night For fear of seeing someone drink liquor by your garage Or two rival gangs go all out in a slaying fest Or see your next door neighbor get cuffed for dealing drugs out of her house Or see a pregnant teen mother walked down the street with her other Laquitas and Lil’ Mans behind her Or see your best friend get gunned down because some fool wanted a pair of Jumpmans he had on
And it’s sad that sometimes I sleep on the lower bunk of my bed, so that I’ll be out of the way if bullets start to shatter my window and put holes in my walls
But I’d rather get holes in my walls rather than holes in my body so that I’d die and become another statistic
But it shouldn’t be that way I shouldn’t have to sleep on the bottom bunk constantly And I should be free to look out of my bedroom window
