Youth whistles his name — twelve years of life balancing
between eroded curbs just on the edge of Hancock street.
He wears grown man shows on his feet and abandonment
on his mind as he studies parental strangers with a false toughness
but in his eyes is the vision of a child brought up in an
environment of roughness/forced to grow up too fast
by the elements of survival and a reality he fears he won’t outlast.
He is somebody’s child as in his eyes are the tears of a childhood lost/
hidden behind the interpretation of graffiti stained walls
and beneath the silence of empty playgrounds where innocence
has deserted and left him swinging freely and exposed
to the winds of crime that slowly blows him down a path
he is too young to witness…too young to understand
and too young to find his own way out because
he is somebody’s child out there roaming alone searching
for something to recognize as a dream. He hopes…but finds
himself on the daily hustle because he feels he has no choice/
his cries have gone unheard and there is fear within his voice
as his heart echoes to be held by the hands of love;
and he is somebody’s child wishing he had a place to call home;
a place where his thoughts are defined and his tears
touched by meaning; a place where he is embraced and a place
that recognizes his face
all he wants is to be seen
because he is somebody’s child…he is our child.
© 2011
Tarringo T. Vaughan
