In the blink of an eye I lost hope. In a room full of fake smiles and fake American dreams and the smell of disappointment of last night’s drink. The scents and sights burn me and make me think grimy cream walls and red bandanas and mouldy food stomped into the floor. Incoherent teenagers and uncleaned dishes and rotting teeth with bloodshot eyes that hadn’t been clean for a week. I lost all hope in the tears in the eyes of my brother, I lost hope. I would walk the length of the country just to get to her he said to me. He walked into hell, into a life he had thrown away, that he didn’t have a choice in to begin with anyway. Into old scars like a soldier, didn’t even falter once. I have never been so proud.
In my poor drunken boy’s eyes, hopelessness was hidden. He held himself up on me and told me he was living it up and slurred that we were family and I told him I loved him back, he said he was trying to be happy before he went away, before they took him away. But he was broken-hearted and lonely, his gaze held heavy in mine and tears welled up in mine and she stood at the door with defiance in her eyes. Not wanting to leave the house falling down around her or the older men feeding her what she asked for. So tricked, so duped by these men. So tricked, so duped by rich motherfuckers. Selling them a life they never needed and they just want to fuck you, just want control. Just want to punish and try to feel hard, try to know what it is to be a man. Inside they’re still a child, scared, alone, insecure. Never going to think about potential and never going to escape what was done to them. This world abandoned them all from birth, all they want is gangs and violence and to fuck themselves senseless and to drink themselves until they feel no pain. They smoke so they can forget, they fight each other inside and out for some kind of self worth that never quite comes. Never quite at the head of the pack, never happy living in abandonment and its your fault you rich motherfuckers. Fuck you, feel guilty because you are. Your greed destroyed innocent children, taught them nothing but hate and violence and a world that should never have existed. We have unlimited potential, but you never unlocked our cages, or set us free.
swedish
