by Leonardo Antonio Reyes 

Second place, Poetry, Heard/Arlington County Detention Facility/OAR writing contest, August 2021

It’s crazy the type of stuff you see on

My block

Kids barely 13 selling bags of that rock

Violence out of control, younger and younger,

bodies drop

Its crazy the stuff that you see

on my block

Young women corrupted selling they soul

For what they think is a lot

People glorifying the streets thinking its

something its not

Let me tell you right now

selling dope ain’t the only way to get to

the top

But we so messed up we think its

all that we got

No role models so we looked up to

that knot

We played games with our lives, our

fun was ducking cops

Slowly but surely our lives go down the

drain

Start getting locked up, start going insane

But this could be a blessing long as you

maintain

Stay off them drugs, start stimulating

your brain

Start realizing there’s another way out

Got that legal money, don’t have to

Worry ‘bout a drought

Do right by your family and right by

your kids

Show ‘em its more to life than

Selling drugs and doing bids