I lie on the ground alone, only sound is fleeing feet. It’s my last sound. I watch the world slowly fade to back. I don’t remember what brought me here, why we’re fighting or what it’s for. My mind goes blank, there’s no one around to see this reina shed a single tear. The tear holds so much. It holds sorrow, for all the tings I’ve lost, pain for every hit I’ve taken. Anger at myself for every time I screwed up. I shed a tear for my little ones, they’ll never see their momma again. I shed the tear for the kid who caused all of this, his funeral will follow mine. I shed the tear for the kids who won’t live to see they twentieth birthday, some their tenth and others their single digits. I shed a tear for the girls who get with the ones like me, the girls and guys like me. I shed a tear for my kids, it’s full of hope that they won’t be like me. My tear has hit the ground, and I draw my last breath, hearing the sound of bullets flying…
I watch from a roof top, my body lying in the middle of the street. I see people running, hearing the sirens blaring in the distance. The hardened faces showing nothing, their eyes relaying a different message. One stumbles, his boys run on, the fallen boy lays quiet as the cops and their K-9 units show up. They roll him over, pick him up and being reading him his rights. He mutters and rolls his eyes, having heard this all before. One of his boys joins me on the roof. Hiding from everyone. He’s a timid little guy, looks no more than fourteen, but I know he won’t last long. The sirens die away as the sun comes up, the bodies have been removed and the blood washed away. The young boy from the night before is asleep next to me. One of my boys lays lifeless behind a dumpster in the alley back to our hood. I walk down the street, passing teens as they discuss the night before. I walk into my house, the sitter asleep on the couch, my little girl curled up on the floor, holding her favorite stuffed animal close, having heard the shots last night. She knows what to do, having done it so many times before. My dog awakes and looks straight at me. After a few seconds he gets up and walks over to me. His tail wags but I’m unable to pet him, he looks at me confused as to why. He walks over to my little girl and licks her face waking her. She calls my name and I frown, but she walks over to me and hugs me. I stumble backwards slightly with surprise and she looks at me and frowns. I kneel in front of her and she begins chattering away about the sitter and how she didn’t tell her to get on the ground. The sitter awakes and looks over at my little girl, I know what she sees. She sees a little girl talking to no one, and a dog wagging his tail furiously at a person who isn’t there.