we go without due to your unlawful deeds.
Yes, you get the money to take care of your bills.
In exchange, we go for days without meals.
Times are hard for you and us.
Do your part to make it better and stop selling drugs.
Hunger is only the beginning of our troubles.
The problems then start on another level.
Summer is good, but there isn’t much to do.
But winters are long, scary, and cruel.
We all sleep on the kitchen floor
because the only source of heat is the oven with an open door.
Let’s not forget school.
No money for books, paper, or writing tools;
no new clothes or shoes to show off;
just the same dirty clothes, old shoes, and a nasty cough.
Think about what I just told you.
I hope you change or at least adhere a little caution to what you do.
Don’t get me wrong, your worries are probably just as bad,
in a different why but just as sad.
Next time, our take money for stamps,
next projects you post up in and camp.
Think, the life you are selling to is not her won to destroy.
She got three little girls and two boys.
I felt it was time to say something—to take a stand.
So this is my letter to the dope man.
The Letter from the Dope Man
I listened to your voice, and I heard your cry.
Now it’s my turn to let loose mines.
I’m a young black man at the age of twenty-one.
I’ve been selling since I was twelve and not once has this shit been fun.
My momma’s a crackhead too, and my daddy’s a drunk.
I’m not blaming that on the choices I’ve made, but I wasn’t real smart, and I could never dunk.
My chances of getting out of the ghetto were getting smaller and smaller.
Problems in my youth stacked taller and taller.
I have three siblings under me;
I had to find a way out to set them free.
“Get a job” is what they all say.
Couldn’t take care of the four of us on McDonald’s petty ass pay.
Keeping my head above water is hard to do.
Times were hard ad options were few.
I do what I do for survival.
To add to that, I’m preparing for my newborn’s arrival.
I am sorry for what I’ve put your family through,
but my brother wants to go to college, and my sister needs new shoes.
Time is something I do not have.
I apologize on the dope man’s behalf.
Someday, I’m gonna quit this shit;
make enough money to start my own business, something legit.
I worry every day about being locked up or somebody hittin’ a lick.
What I do gets a lot of people pissed.
I want just as bad as you did for this to end.
Maybe one day, we can come together find a solution and begin again.
Until that time, the situation is out of my hands.
This is the letter from the dope man.
We are back in East St. Louis, Illinois. Something went really wrong in California. We got on a Greyhound bus one day and rode for three of the most horrible days of my young life. I got registered at Lilly Freeman Elementary School. I was in the fifth grade. The teacher I got was pretty nice, but I didn’t want to live here. I want to know what happened. It’s cold as fuck here, and we now lived in a house with about thirteen people. It was so crowded in there, and my mommy was always sleeping. She didn’t do anything but sleep and cry. I’m happy to be around my family. They were freaking hilarious. I just didn’t know why we were here and where was my daddy. Why didn’t my mommy go find him? Why didn’t he come back to us? This shit was crazy. I love my mommy, but this made no sense to me.
There came the day I found out why my life had changed so dramatically. I was the first one home from school from school this day. That was weird because Baby Brother was downstairs by himself. Where was everybody? My granny and granddaddy were at the grocery store. I remembered them talking about it earlier before I left for school. My uncles were always gone, so that was normal for them for them not to be there, but my mommy was always there with Baby Sis and Baby Brother. Sissy wasn’t even there. Mommy picked her up from school every day. I started searching the house when I heard a noise in the basement. I had always been terrified of the basement. My uncles had also banned me from their rooms in the basement, so it was a forbidden spot. I opened up the door to the basement and started to yell for my mommy. She didn’t answer, but I heard laughter. I wanted to see what was so funny.
I got to the bottom stair, and there were a group of people around the pool table. At first, I thought it was my uncles and their friends in a game of pool, but it wasn’t. It was my mommy and three strange people who I had never seen before in my life. They had a spoon, some aluminum foil, cigarette lighters, and some of those metal scrubs that were in the kitchen. There was no pool game going as far I could tell. Everybody looked crazy and was talking really slow. One was slobbering when he talked. It was gross. I got really scared. It smelled terrible down there, and I began to cry. I still didn’t understand what was going on, so I called my mommy’s name. She was startled. I asked her why she didn’t pick up Sissy. She started yelling at me about being in grown folk business and pushing me up the stairs. She told me to get Baby Sis and Baby Brother and take them to the room. I disappeared to my room, but I could hear the commotion downstairs. It must have been later than they thought because they started to scramble. I looked out the bedroom window, and you could see them hittin’ that door and running down Missouri Avenue like they had stolen something. My mommy hit across the field toward Lilly Freeman Elementary School. She was an hour late, but she had finally gone to pick up Sissy.
When you live in the projects, word spread fast, and by the time my granny got home, everybody in the hood knew that my mommy had left Sissy at the school. Granny had been down the street visiting
