Yesterday

Yesterday I was a girl who felt broken and completely alone in the world.

Today I am a woman who knows she can take on the entire world but doesn’t fucking want to. I just want to sleep. The sadness that I feel is etched into the fucking bones and it’s not going anywhere any time soon. Part of it is depression, and part of it is the lack of independence that I feel because I’m just stuck.

I have connections in my life that I can’t break, that is draining everything from me, every last bit of energy, and even though I can say and do as I please, I can’t escape. It’s a very…convoluted prison. I could walk out and leave and tomorrow I’d be in a homeless shelter, but I know what that life brings and it’s not freedom.

Yesteryear there was an underground railroad for women like me, women who need to escape their lives so they can have something better, something more positive, but there’s just nowhere for me to go because those days are over. Everyone needs help right now, and I’m kind of left to my own devices trying to figure out what works, but nothing is really making me “happy” for continual moments.

In the 90s I loved listening to gangster rap because it was a fantasy, it was the soundtrack to a life that I didn’t understand and couldn’t really comprehend, in the 2000s, I’m the one writing about what I went through with gangs and gang culture, the only difference between what I talk about and what Eminem talks about is that I don’t rap. Publicly.

Today I’m listening to a song called Last Kings with Snoop and Dre, and all I can think is there are kids shooting each other in the streets, finding no hope these kids are reaching for drugs and gangs, just like you Em, Snoop, Dre, Method Man, only they don’t have anyone to teach them to rap to teach them to sit down and write songs and produce music that gives them an outlet to escape drugs and gangs.

And the programs that we have for these kids aren’t working. Yesterday a little kid found a gun that was probably used in a murder on the school grounds. There are no rules in these streets, there are only bullets these days and I’m tired.

I want to go to a place where there is no racism, sexism, homophobia, where people are welcome just because they are who they are without being afraid to be themselves, I want to go to a place where people are safe to be themselves, and if I can’t go there, I want to build it.

I want to go to a place where I don’t get yelled at, or where I don’t have to yell to be heard, and I want to feel like I can safely pay my own bills, I just want to be the adult that the world prevented me from being for so fucking long, and yeah I’m fighting for it, but I’m wearing down.

Yesterday with Renita, Barrie, and Savannah, was the best day I’ve had in a really long time, because I didn’t really or fully know who would show up, and I was afraid I’d end up being alone, but instead, I was surrounded by people who love me, support me, and who made me laugh.

Our conversation was great, and we’re all looking forward to doing it again, and I know others will jump on board when they get used to it, but I also resent that I have to work so hard for so little. I can’t lie here, that’s the rule, I am not asking you to read this to support me, I’m pissed at the people in my life who don’t support me but should. Family and friends who claim they want to be a part of my life, but only when I’m successful, when I have money to make their lives better.

I’m talking about all the people who say that they’ll support me in the future, well if you’re not here, the fuck makes you think I want you sneaking around six months from now? Like no? I’m not going back to that again.

I started this off by saying that yesterday I was a girl who felt alone and broken in this world, but I’m ending it by saying that I also feel incredibly loved by those who are here now and who don’t need me to be shiny and perfect to let me into their lives.

Thank you for that.

Sending all my love,

Devon J Hall