Journal

I grew up in downtown Baltimore off of New Jersey Ave, right in the ghetto, projects or whatever you wanna call it. I was one of the few white girls in my school. I started chillin with my gang friends when I was 9, going on 10. I learned how to shoot a gun when I was 7 and a half. Everyone I hung around was either in a gang, on drugs or on probation. There was few that wasn't. We'd sit on my doorstep hearing shootings, screams, cars squeaking, windows breaking, feet running. Then there's the shoot-bys, drive bys, and then there be the ones who get killed right in front of our faces. The first time I saw it I was terrified. I mean I was there a few hours, then there goes bang bang! But after you see it day in and day out, you get used to it. You know when to duck heads, the whole nine yards, whether it's in house or out house, playing b-ball, beating [people's butts], looking up at the new kids on the block saying, "What you lookin at?", going to school, having people jumped, seeing us come in to school going through medal detectors. Yeah, we did crimes but I never got caught with it. I mean, never and if I did, it was once when I was put on house arrest with an ankle bracelet that had a red light that blinked when you went too far outside. I could go as far as [name withheld] porch which was three houses down. I spent my days with him and everyone. I could go in the middle of the street but not across or it started to blink and my house arrest officer would be notified. I grew up in the projects, then I went to live with my aunt in Pasadena, MD, and I always made my way back there so she had enough and kicked me out and I had been kicked out of schools and they tried to enroll me in an alternative school but I was dealing drugs on the corner by the store and my dad drove by. He saw me and all he said was make my money and come home. Well, I got to go.