They have it together they say

They are wrong

They don’t see what I see

They see money, fame, and power

I see single mothers and fathers trying to just make it from week to week

Brothers raised on the streets with drugs, guns, and thugs

Sisters on street corners selling themselves just to make a dime

While the upper class sit in their fancy home

Hand and foot they are waited on

A homeless couple sitting in their torn but infested mattress with dirty needles in their arms

Mothers lie to their kids saying everything’s going to be all right when they hear mommy and daddy yelling.

Girls and boys coming to school with marks around their  neck or random bruises saying over and over that they fell when really they’re beaten by their drunk dad every night because mommy left.

Hearing bang bang bang from guns going off every night as you hide in your bed

Sons joining gangs because of daddy; dealing pot, meth, heroin

Daughters taking up prostitution because of mommy, selling themselves because they don’t know any better

They tell themselves they’re  doing the right thing

When daddy comes home with the smell of alcohol on his breath and red lips stuck on his neck

But mommy sees it all but acts like she doesn’t, secretly cries in the shower so her kids don’t have to see her broken and weak.

People afraid to call the cops because they don’t know who works for what gang or if there are any good ones

Sister is sitting in the bathroom crying because her teacher touched her, as little brother keeps saying, “What’s wrong sissy?”

Preachers running the over-crowded soup kitchens and shelters just for people to eat and live.

Single fathers and their sons sleeping in the subway bathroom,

Single mothers and their daughters sleeping in their pimp’s house with the other girls, all just to stay warm

Drunk drivers hitting another car killing entire families and getting away with it

Children are hit by cars while playing in the road because no one tells them it’s not safe, so they think it is ok

Children are stuck in a house with other children they don’t know, all because they are not wanted; they have no one that loves them; most of these kids never make it to a loving family or even out of the system

Kids recruited into gangs, killing just to be let in, doing their dirty work

Never making it out

Hearing mommy screaming at daddy while he works three job to taking care of them and taking care of a newborn

While daddy is working  mommy has random men in the house and blowing whatever money he brings home on hair, nails, and makeup

Dropping her panties, while taking a swig out of the bottle, selling herself for the product just to get that feeling

Selling drugs to other kids at school because they have nothing better to do with themselves

Some take it to take the pain away, others for the fun of it

Trying to hide it from their family, but Dad finds it under the mattress

The one girl that’s in pain and cuts herself just to deal with the pain that the other girls in the gym locker room cause her because she ether she’s too fat or ugly

Women and men raped and too scared to come forward because they were threatened, while they are scared and ashamed, and the rapist stands all mighty and proud  

Child soldiers fighting for their drug dealers, as one by one they get put into the ground as there mama is crying and their dad holds her and shakes his head in disappointment because he knows he raised them better than that

Looking at her belly as she’s kneeling in front of the toilet, knowing that’s she’s having a baby but she’s still selling everything in her house to buy an ounce

While babies with mental and physical deformities left on the church steps in the middle of the freezing night just because their parents didn’t want to deal with them anymore

That child that comes home crying because no one not even his parents see that he is struggling because he is getting the letter B and D or M and N mixed up

Or the other child that goes to the office because kids are bullying them and there counselors say they can’t help them

Some animals get beaten, used for fight just for entertainment and just left to die when they are not needed anymore  

Sometimes we see things that aren’t meant to be seen

But this is meant to be seen

People go through some of the toughest things

Mothers and fathers arguing, drunk fathers hitting their kids, mothers and daughters sell themselves for money, fathers and sons joining gangs just to live, men cheating on their wife’s, people overdosing on drugs, children getting bullied happens every day

Those are just a few thing that happen every day

Most of us don’t see the bad, we just see the good

We all have friends that go through something like this, we may not see it because we don’t want to see

never give up on someone just because you think they cannot be helped   

Because people give up on each other every day when they need it the most  

The people that this happens to makes them feel like they are in a cage

We can help them get out

Once we open our eyes and actually take a look at the world

And we will see what people deal with every day