I have no dreams, no aspirations, and no hope for a better life. Today is the present, my past has faded, and my future is as bleak as the day I was born. What if you were stuck in this scary life, where everyday is the same and the sun just never shines.
Some people think life is about family, education, clothes and striving for a better future. For me it’s different, people don’t understand that I have no future, no education, no college crazy days or hectic house parties. I don’t even have a home, a place to sleep at night, and family, I should be so lucky. They don’t know how it feels to be a failure, to know that you mean nothing to those people around you. My whole life has been about the simple goal of staying alive, after all you need food to survive but more important you need money to buy the food. My birth was not a joyous day like it is for most people; I was a burden to the only person in my family, my mother. I just another person she had to look after, clothe and feed. She was so young and weak that I never got the right care; I don’t blame her, after all I, Simora Marwede was one of my mothers many mistakes and that would never change. Only a day after my birth I was put to work, my job was to be out on the streets. I was never a cute or beautiful baby, after all people aren’t looking at your face, they’re looking at your clothes and by the looks of the yellow and blue dishtowel around my waist, I could never be as cute as the other newborns. In my mothers arms I would watch the cars drive past, yellow, blue, silver. In through the shiny, clear windows I would look at the people in their clothes with their toddlers in their matching pink and blue booster seats, I would try and reach out for them not knowing what it was like to touch another child, but the window was always in the way. This was my mothers second source of income, encase the first wasn’t enough to get us through the month. My mother would stand at their windows with a tiny, thin newborn baby on her side and glare at them with her big beady eyes. The driver would study me and my mother and then gaze into the back at her own children; she would feel sorry for this starving baby and remove her wallet from her handbag to give my mother some money. This was the only way my mother could keep me alive. We made enough money to feed ourselves daily. As I grew older, my mother discovered drugs, using all our money to satisfy her needs, there was nothing left for me to survive on. When my mom was doing the night shift I would be out on the pavement in the cold with the other homeless children. During the day, she was so tired that she would pass out on the pavement and leave me to do my own thing. I was a toddler at that stage and the streets were mine. I sat in the roads and ran around while rich folks sat in their cars, mouths wide open, they could not believe that my mother could let me do this. This was the way we made most of our money, people just saw a child, so innocent and pure. How could they let an infant like their own suffer harsh conditions like this? As I got older people didn’t care anymore, I was just some black child on the streets up to no good. The same as every other street child my age, a nuisance. When times were tough, my mom was almost never around. I found myself making the street my home at night. One Cold August night a black car pulled up to the pavement where I was lying. A thin clean, neatly dresses woman stepped out and told me to get in the car. It was my mother, she was new, clean, like I had never seen her before. It was that night that I met Dante, a young, strong man with a bald head. At first I was intimidated but as filled with happiness when I realised that mom and I were not alone, we could be happy again, like a family. Once again life wasn’t that simple and it was just too good to be true. I would often hear my mother scream out at night, it was just bad dreams, things were looking up. When I started hearing loud bangs and cries at night I knew what was happening. Dante was a drug dealer, when he wasn’t at home he was at the pub, drinking. He would come home in his demented state and fight with my mother, hitting her and abusing her. Then it started with me, he came into my bedroom when he was finished with my mom. He told me how bad I was, how I haven’t looked after my mother, then he lifted his large hand and hit my back till every bone in my body shook and my eyes grew heavy. I sunk into a dark place and listened to the grunts and moans my body made as it was slammed against the wall. I awoke to the sun streaming through the windows and the birds singing but not even these natural beauties could convince me to move. My body was numb and my mind was in shock. I couldn’t hear anyone in the house. I called for my mother but there was no answer. I held my breath and used my swollen, blue hands to lift the rest of my broken body off the ground. I had to find my mom, What if she was hurt, or maybe she had run away without me, I would have to escape before Dante returned. As my legs navigated their way to the door my mind was still going over the events of last night. I crawled to my moms room as my legs could no longer support my aching body. There she was, the lady that had raised me, kept me alive was lying on the floor, in a pool of blood. I couldn’t feel a pulse. I lay on her chest waiting for a miracle to happen. For her body to heal and her heart to start beating again. I knew this wasn’t going to happen. I took her arm and started pulling her towards the door. ‘Please mom, wake up. He’s going to get you, wake up!’ She didn’t react to my pleading and she didn’t Evan react to my screaming. I knew she was gone and I had to escape, start a new life, I needed to leave the past behind.
