You’re never out, not really.
Kids fall through the cracks all the time, they join the wrong crowd, they do the wrong things, and if they’re lucky, they get out alive. Sometimes they’re locked up, put in a cage in the ultimate time out to sit in the corner and think about what they’ve done. I wonder about the ones that are put away, I wonder what their lives must be like now. They were the free spirits, the older kids, the ones I wanted to be like, the young men I respected more than anything.
They no longer soar through the sunset; condemned caged birds of paradise.
They deserve it, I know they do.
But that doesn’t mean I miss them any less.
At least they’re locked up, I tell myself, at least they’re alive. Because sadly, not all of us kids made it out alive. Not all of them had a fire lit under their core that drove them up out of the crack they fell through. When one is set ablaze, there are two options: succumb to the flames, or become one. Some tuned to ash, some were put out, and very few of us continue to shine on in this world.
How did I end up there? A perfect storm. The storm had a name, one that runs through my head every day, even years later. I met that storm behind the school one day, and even then I knew exactly what I was walking into.
Man the way he used to look at me, that smile caught like wild fire.
It may be overdone, but that daring band of delinquents were the only people I’ve ever considered family. They respected me more than the people in the house I had to return to ever would.
Falling in love on a battlefield stains you in ways you can never bleach out. I’ve loved since then, I’m engaged now. But I don’t think I’ll ever really fall out of love with that storm from my past. Not to say that I don’t love my Husband-To-Be, but there are some things about the thrill of delinquency he’ll never understand like that storm did. And I like that about him, that he doesn’t understand.
Living through something like that gang war makes you off-color to the rest of the world. I’m feel like I’m pretending, walking along inside the laws with others as if I have never lived outside of them. I marvel at the graffiti others scorn, I always watch my back, I have stories I can never share. I’ve seen things I wish I could forget, I was just a pawn in the game of those far older and more corrupt than I. We all were. We were so young, so so young. My brother is the age I was then, and he’s just a child. How could they do that to us children, make us believe that we invincible? I am one of the handful that didn’t learn of my morality the hard way.
Back then as we laid in the grass on a summer night, watching the stars, my friends in crime told me that they knew I’d make it out alive, that they knew I’d go on to do great things. They had a faith in me they never held in themselves. I wish I could show them where I am now.
Every goal I reach, everything I accomplish, it is not just me. Standing behind me are those since passed, those locked away, those who never climbed out of the crack. I was apart of their family once, and I will forever be. Even if it’s just me, even if I stand here alone, they will always be with me.
It feels so long ago, the night I stood in the center of a burning building. Gunfire echoing in my ears, the fire dancing through my tears, I’ll never forget it. They came to my rescue even though I had given up, accepted that I was to succumb. I can still feel his grip on my arm, hear their coughs, see the burning drywall.
We saw a shooting star once, as we laid in that grass at night in the summer.
Each one of us made a wish.
Mine was to stay with them forever.
I never told anyone that wish before now, but regardless, it didn’t come true.
When things get hard I find myself wishing to go back to that time with those people. But I know that will never be. Though the graffiti on the streets tell me that world in just a step around the corner. I could go back. It wouldn’t be the same, but I’d probably still have fun. It’s a struggle, being a villain trying so very hard to pretend I’m not.
But then I remember the wishes my friend made that night on that shooting star and I know that I’m the only person who can make them come true. The storm I had fallen in love wished for one thing, for me to live happily ever after.
So I can’t go back, I can never go back.
I got to visit him in prison. His storm has calmed, the heart I always knew he had is in the right place now. A lot has changed since we were those lost daring delinquents, but one thing never has.
“You’re going to University?” The way he smiled, it lit up that gray room.
I nodded, barely able to look at him.
“I always knew you would make us proud.”
He’ll be out someday. I’ll be married by then. I’ll be tamed, a civilian like the rest. The gunfire will be an echo so distant it will no longer keep me up at night and the delinquent inside will have finally grown silent. I’ll be free, when he is. It’ll be years, but I know that someday, no matter what they say,
I will be out.
But only if I never go back.
Never forget why the past is in the past.
That door is closed for a reason, and no matter how much you want to open it again…
Don’t.
-Love Bulletproof-
You Are Not Alone. 
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