From Crim 101

It’s odd to be sitting in a criminology class, and to be learning about things like crime and poverty and how it’s all entangled, and it’s also sad, because obviously we have known for a long time what causes crime, and we know that we need to be building strong communities, and we need to be giving everyone an equal footing to start life off with.

But that’s not how our world is, despite all of our knowledge.

As someone who has experienced more than her share of life, which for me, has been a colorful one, I am glad to know that universities are trying to wake up the next generation and make them more aware, less prejudiced, and more compassionate.

No one asks to be born into this world, and when you are, you are born into a life you have no control over, and either it’s a good life, or it’s a hard life, and being able to experience social mobility is easier said than done.

The differences between ‘us’ and ‘them’ are used to keep ‘all of us’ from standing together and demanding change, equal access to opportunities, and an end to warehousing the poor.

We should as a society want better for each other, want our less fortunate to be able to pick themselves up, dust themselves off and move on and do better, but our world is so materialistic and so capitalistic, and so selfish, that this idea has become archaic.

We have the solutions in front of our eyes and we KNOW that we need to invest in our youth, our communities, and our indigenous people, we need programs to fix the damage which has been done, we need funding for these programs, but it’s always among the first to be cut.

It’s an uphill battle.

There are so many injustices in our world, it’s exhausting to think of it all and to know that a key part of the solution is so simple, yet so seemingly impossible.

I would love to see a universal basic income be rolled out in our country, and to see more low-income housing being purchased or built, I would love to see low income people be able to buy their homes instead of renting, giving permanence and stability and roots to their families.

I would love to see our indigenous people regain their strength and nobility, and to see them succeed.

I would love to be able to just snap my fingers and make the world a better place, but it’s not that easy – I hope I am able to use the combined knowledge gained via life & university to at least make it a little bit better.

I wrote this, originally on a table in a crack house in Winnipeg, when I was 14. I have rewritten it several times over the years, and it may be posted online somewhere (I think I put it on a wordpress thing?) I don’t write a lot of poetry anymore, but I used to write a lot, about the life I was living. And this one was my favorite.

I don’t know how I have managed to remember it all these years, but I have. And so….

I set out on my journey,

Followed paths of the damned,

Home so far behind, what lies ahead unknown,

I ask myself,

What am I trying to find?

. . Dark streets, cold nights, hazy rooms and flashing lights,

My head spins, mesmerized

Girls, on the corner, under the lights

Flimsy dresses, bedroom eyes

Waiting for the man as he drives by

The music booms across the room,

Drowning out the news of a killer on the loose,

As he pulls up, and she steps in.

Men, dressed in black, with their bags of white

Stay in the shadows avoiding the light

Forever waiting for the girls out in the night

A shooting star prepares his final hit

The red and white mix

It squirts out the tip

Then he takes the plunge

And soars so high

Into the sky

Then suddenly ceases to shine

In the night

Where the men in black, wait endlessly

For the girls under the lights

And as the sun rises in the east,

The people in the west

Run and hide

Never seeing

Day from night