There’s a pool where I grew up

There’s a pool where I grew up. No one knows how deep it is, the waters are so black you can’t see the bottom and the mud is so thick anything lost in it would never be found.

The kids there live in this pool their feet sinking in the mud, and they laugh and joke because they’re together and play silly games. But the mud, it keeps them in there, holding them down, and everything is in the mud. The neglecting parents, the poor education, the angry policemen, the corrupt officials, drugs, alcohol, promises, the potential employer who has no faith in them because they grew up in this mud. They’re all there holding them down, part of the mire.

And the kids they can see the good things all around them, they can see the fields of wildflowers that offer freedom, they look to the stars, try as they may they can never reach them.

Somehow this is their fault; this is their choice to be here, but they were born in this mud, they were born in this skin, they were born in this dark water.

And what do you think happens when one of these kids wades ashore, to join the civilised. There is no pat on the back, no “Well done,” because he’s still covered in mud, if anything “they” would do all in their power to push him back into those waters and hope he disappears never to be seen again.

There is a pool where I grew up and there are thousands of us yet still those are the loneliest waters you’ll ever find.