Cliche title, I know.
If I could go back, I would. If I could go back and tell that little girl I used to be, that innocent and pure little girl, that none of it was worth it, I would. Drugs and gangs aren't fun, they aren't things to play with, and they will catch you. Once you are in, you don't come out. Ever.
They look like dangerous fun from the outside, a world to flirt with and go back to the normal world, smiling at your dangerous little secret, your little secret that makes you untouchable. That secret may protect you from most, but it's a grenade, and you don't even realize it until it goes off. That world has bear trap jaws and they snap on everyone that comes through them, whether they know it or not.
I know things. There's things I've seen, things I stood by and let happen, that I hate. While I haven't done any criminal activity myself, I am not innocent. I've covered for people. Lied for them. Protected them. Hid them. And I shouldn't have. I did it because I was told to. I did it because I chose to.
I thought that world would protect me. I thought I was smarter than it. If I didn't do anything myself, I was safe. If I didn't do the drugs, I was safe. If I was just an information passer, I was safe. I wasn't part of it. I wasn't a member. I was okay. I wasn't.
When I put on that bandanna, when I put on those colors, I became a bad person. When I started trusting those colors, I was part of it. I was furthering the cause. When I learned the secret code, the hand signals, the written ones, the unspoken ones, I was part of it.
I want to not be a part of it. I want to be able to walk through a city and not immediately know what deals are going on, just by looking around. I want to erase every fact, every thing I ever learned from them and be innocent. I want to be the very person I fought against. I want to be "empty-headed," a "waste of space." I want to be the kind of person they called, "targets," "pawns."
Especially now, that a family has taken me in, shown me the life I should have had, I want to be free from all of that knowledge. I feel like I am dirty compared to them. A slug on a white bed sheet. They are so innocent, so clean, so unknowing of certain dangers, that I envy them. I want to not be forever associated and lumped in with drug addicts and gang members. I got out of that world, so untie my connections to it!
I want to not immediately tense and form an alibi when I see police; I want to feel safe and relieved they are there. I want to not pull at my sleeves and have my mouth go dry when I see a needle; I want to feel slightly light headed, like everyone else. I want to be a part of society. A clean, normal person, the kind I never got to be, the kind that I could have been before I was dragged in, before I was brainwashed into thinking that was my only fate, that that was the only world that would protect me, love me, take care of me. Every word they told me was a lie and I became just another victim.
I have physical scars, yes, from that world. But the mental ones and emotional ones are so many in number, they run so deep, that I fear I will never find a place in normal society, in everyday life that doesn't include illicit activities. I've been out of that world for over a year now. What do I have to do to cleanse myself of that world, to shake off the shackles that bind me better and more effectively than prison ones ever could?
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