Torn

     I’m torn. I want to get out of North Filthy. This neighborhood, these people, I fear the mentality that allows adults to throw their garbage on the ground, fist fight in the streets, speak obscenities in front of toddlers is contagious. But, what if it is already in me? What if I moved here because the trash filled gutters are familiar, comforting? What if the language of despair is my native tongue? What if people look at me the way I look at some of my neighbors?

     I do not want my son to wake up to this, come home to this. Yes, I scrub our floors, yes I correct his language, yes, we pray and say ‘thank you’ for neighbors, our playground, the kids and the ice cream truck. But what we rail against is pervasive and his development, his idea of self is developing now, in a pile of feces, like a maggot. And yet there is this truth also: here is where the work needs to be done. Here is where the cycle must be broken. I could shelter my child, protect mine and mine alone as is a mother’s instinct, but what of the children who do not have any other example of how to speak or be?  Don’t we former activist and children of the projects accuse those who ‘made it’ of abandoning their roots? These are my roots. If I push away, move away, sequester my son off to a private school, then what of these children. What of these adults?

Let’s not forget this question; who am I? Who am I to assume that ‘my way’ is the better way.....? I'm not even sure what 'my way' is. I just know I feel disgust,anger, sadness and dismay daily, in the face of this impoverished dignity.That is not the emotional example I want to set.