Poor Hurt Girl

16, and you believe that you're grown. Out in the streets having sex for attention, and selling your soul for love.

You have no mother or father, because they're in love with drugs. Now your grandparents are doing all that they can do, but you're becoming to much. They don't want to be hard on you, because they know how hard life has been on you and your brother. You're skipping class, fighting and acting out of control. You have started taking money, when all you have to do is ask for it. I see you want to be hard. Running back to your friends, making them believe that you're more than what they say you are.

What a shame?

17, and you're homeless now. Your grandparents couldn't take it anymore, they began to stand up for themselves and that made you back down. Back down so much, that you left the one place you called home. You walked out with no plan and no place to go. Your feet took you to your old neighborhood, were you seen your mother and all you could do is cry. Seeing her so strung out, hurt you to your core. She tried to hug and hold you, but you were too afraid and angry to let her. When you called your friends (who now have no words for you, because they have never been real friends), they let you know, they have no time or space for you.

Broken home girl. The world can't blame you because you were never loved right.

Now 18, you have a pimp and you're dancing for money. Overwhelmed with hate and pain, but you believe this is life and it's no way out. So you swing around the pole and turn up your nose, at other women who work a 9-5 and can't do for themselves what your "daddy" can do for you.

What a shame?

You're 19, and you still can't see he is the gatekeeper. You can't make moves without him, plus now you have his children. He hits you and has you using drugs. You have gone from just dancing, to going in and out of motel rooms. For awhile it was just you, but now you're feeling replaced. Another young girl just like you, lost and unwanted just the way he likes them. You take her under your wing, and teach her all the things he has taught you. You turn her out, and show her what this life is all about. He has you beating her, every time she starts to ask too many questions about money or when her money comes up short. You both take turns making her understand, who is in control of her life now. You tell her it's no way out for either of you, and you believe that to be true.

What a shame?

Now you're 21, and you have lost a year of your life from drinking and doing drugs. You begin to run out of patience with life, and you start to see it all fall apart in front of you. The girl that you call yourself "helping," has been talking about getting out of the game and trying to do better with her life. You hate it every time she does.

You ask yourself,

"How dare she dream?"

"Does she think she is better than me?"

So one night after the two of them get into a fight, you overhear him tell her,

"You can go, and I bet you'll come crawling back!"

He has never let you go. Now you're talking to yourself,

"She isn't better than me!"

"She isn't getting out of this!"

Mad now. You do a line of cocaine and down a bottle of rum, all that anger from your past begins to overrun. You walk into her room, and try to beat her into submission but this time she fights back. She cries out,

"My life is better than this!"

"I am better than this!"

"My baby deserves better than this!"

You can't believe she is pregnant with his baby, and she gets to be free. The jealousy takes over, so does the anger and the pain. You slip into the darkness.....

21, and now your life is over. In jail for first-degree murder. Now your kids have no mother or father, making life full circle. All you can think about is, your family who tried to love you and the children you tried to love. Living life in the fast lane, and you have finally crashed.

What a shame?

- Kj