These lines from a notebook.

I stare at the clock on my phone as the numbers slowly shift towards midnight, junior still not entering our small house in Payatas. My mind cannot help but be filled with the worst, as it flits towards the stories he had told me of his friend who was shot down on his door step walking home. Through the wooden windows I hear the distant familiar sound of gunshot's the same as it had been every night for the last 3 days. The morning bringing news of death, close to friends home. My mind flits to those friends out of contact without a phone and the warzone ever raging so close to their sanctuary of home. It flits to the boys I met walking to a friend’s house, standing either side of the road throwing up gang signs and letting out their jeers to the white boy brave enough to live day to day in the place forever crying for help in its narrow dangerous streets. The place the police will never go and you have to pay triple to get taxi even close. Their young adolescent bodies already covered in everlasting identity of the brotherhood they belong too. The stories they had told of being paid to kill since the age of thirteen. Escaping the justice system like every other system that overlooks them. They show off each tattoo on their young bodies and explain significance each more and more somber. I feel nothing but desperation for these boys. They were of course young and felt invincible, a feeling I knew all too well when I was the same age, but as I have grown I have learnt how this could not be any less true. They were caught in the attraction of a brotherhood and having money. But at the cost of lives their and own others just like them. The likes of which who lived less than 15 minutes away and could be found just as easily. They told me of broken families and various reasons for not making it to school. They would never have a future unless someone made a change for them,this a thought that ran through my head with the force of a ten tonne truck standing nervously talking too them. Even through their cockiness and naïve belief of invincibility, they were all lost boys that past days sitting in groups and acting the way they feel a gangster should from what they have picked up on from American culture. Only the nights were very real. The nights filled with hazy intoxication and on those fateful few days a rain of bullets any of which could end them before they have even started. Already living the life of murder, drugs and gang rape I sadly reflect on my own childhood and how different everything was. I am plagued with guilt.

I feel constantly compelled to reach out to them to take them to a safe place, even only for a few hours. I invite them down to the center to play basketball. With the games finished and usually resulting in me having circles ran around me. Bottles of coke and whatever the afternoon bbq’s have to offer are shared accompanied by laughter and stories. It is only a start but brings peace of mind to know they are are in that time and the knowledge that I may be able to get through to them help them towards a better life away from it all. Encouraging them to only speak in English which just induces coin American of thug life. It’s a start. They could have a future that didn't leave them forgotten and just another statistic of youth that were deemed hopeless and left to kill each other everyone deserved a slice of the same.

I moved out to my stoop looking out for Junior and breath in the thick stifled air in hope it would clear my mind. It didn't. Only reminded me of the man who had stopped to talk the week before as i sat in the same place though this time without my brothers. It had been one of these brothers who had lived the life of those boys and knew all the faces who hadn't been so fortunate. He called out to a man walking quickly with his hat pulled down low, shifty eyes sent in our direction skeptical and defensive. He came and spoke with an old friend, showed off new bullet wounds and told their stories none of which were fairy tales. The thoughts and memories became too much so i went back into the house hoping he would return soon knowing i would not sleep until he did.

As junior walks through the door with a smile completely puzzled to my worried look I let it fade and smile never able to share my worries of a world he is already far more used to than I.