Days Gone By

Reality check! Walking down the street and I see them from the corner of my eye. I know them, they are family. I can read them they are my brothers my sisters my Mother and Father. The streetkids the homeless. I sit an observe not really them but those around to see. It is sad, you would think the ones with the looks would be the worse but no it is the ones that pretend they don't see. Do you know this year more kids will die on the streets than people killed in 9/11. Yet we spend time and money and lives to go after them but not hardly any though is given to our kids here, dieing in front of us daily. More kids will die in the streets than soldiers have died in Iraq. Yet when was the last time you turned on the news and heard a word about the lives of our children being taken everyday. Why...Cause we don't see them we don't want too. I don't want to and I am one of them. I walked away, I deserted my flock but today I am back and I see them, there in front of me, hungry, tired, dirty, clean, it is scary. Most of these kids have never known happiness, beaten abused by those that were meant to love them. I have heard the words so many times, "They choose to live like this, they want to live like this, why don't they get a job. I am hear to say they do, I did. We choose not to be beaten. We choose not ot be raped daily from our Mothers and Fathers, Sisters and Brothers, Uncles and Cousins. We are dead inside there is no life left in us. That is why we are here. Surviving no more no less. Crying ourselves to sleep wishing never to see the light of morning again. Our jobs are now to try and eat...How....We keep the pedifiles happy, we keep the old nasty men satisfied. We run the drugs and become a pimps property. This is better than what we left at home or in the happy foster system. We are empty we feel no more, why should we, how can we, if we have never felt before. Next time look at us, we are people, we are children. We have names, and faces, don't just throw us a dollar and feel you have done your part buy us a burger and look in our eyes. My friend was 8 years old when he first hit the streets. His father started raping him when he was 2 years old. To him it was better to have a stranger rape him then his father and atleast most of the time when the stranger was done he let him be instead of beating him. Alice is my friend, she was 11 when she came to the streets. In the first 24 hours here she learned to shoot up to take the pain away. Then she learned to sell herself for her drugs, no matter she had been raped by all her fathers friends (I should say sold for sex to support his habit) since she was 7. She was dead inside and later dead on the outside. 6 months and the streets ate her for dinner. The stories go on and on. All the same. This is how we treat our children. This is me, I know the fear, the inability to go to a shelter. I know the desire to stay on the streets with the only family you know. The ones who love you and protect you and understand you. Go home....Why...It is sad. So I get up and go to them and ask what can I do for you. If only one thing what can I do for you...Money says they...For what I ask....Food, they say. Come, and eat with me, stares and then nods. Pizza and coke and a smile every now and again. Thanks for caring say they in there own way.....You are my brother my sister, I say and they know.