Old House, New House

• Artist: Crash Skratchfairy
• Description: Until I was 10 I lived in a neighborhood where people were robbed by their friends, women were shot instead of beat, and kids went missing every day. This is about how my dad worked as hard as he possible could work in order to get us out of there. He started saving the money when I was 2 years old, and even though it took another 8 to have enough, he still did it.
• Date: 07/17/2009
• Tags: house house

Dead grass in the yards,
Children’s toys, broken and bent.
Pot holes, dumps in the road.

Our old truck, up on blocks
Sitting in the backyard,
Covered in vines and rust.

People argued late into the night.
Gun shots and smashing bottle,
Cop cars woke us up.

Broken glass and blood on the floor
As my sister helping me through the window
Yelling “get someone from next door”

That's what I remember the most.

We were scared sometimes,
But back then it didn’t matter.
We didn’t care about
The small house falling apart,
The food stamps that barely got us by,
The fact we had no money.

But you cared.
You wanted better for us.

I remember you working until morning.
You told me it was so that one day soon,
We would have more.

You wanted for us what you never had;
A home.
An education.
Somewhere to feel safe.

And now, thanks to you, we have that.

Comments

[Saffrony Paprika]

That's an amazing story. Your dad sounds like a hero.
The poem itself is very good too, I do have one tiny thing that I think you could work on. It's great but maybe if you worked on combining the factor of trying to get the point across, and the style of writing that makes it poetry, it has the potential to be outstanding! But that's just me and my nitpicky ways. smile Five stars.