I wasted a perfectly good morning at school, today, watching the Sandlot.

So, as I was walking home, I did a little zig zag so as to avoid the whistles and taunts of the local pseudogangbangers. I was already wearing a quasi dress and a handbag, I didn't need anymore attention. It's hella funny to see how all my friends in the neighborhood react to the sparse girl things I do... "Is that a purse?" and then I counter with a: "No, it's a bag"...

So, as I'm traversing the rocks around the train tracks (with flipflops on), I cross the barrier wall and who is there but the grittiest, beautifulest OG (gangbanger) ever looking hella hot and stuff. My god, he saw me in the newspaper and now he thinks I'm some child genius or something... Before, we used to talk about meaningful stuff like the struggle and him being locked up, now he's asking me about which college Im going to and what I'm gonna major in. I feel that by going to college, I'm leaving behind all the gangbangers, drug pushing cousins and uncles, pregnant cousins and friends, immigrant neighbors, and close friends that I grew up around.

I don't want to leave them behind.

I don't want them to think that I think I'm too good to stick around with them.

I want to talk to him about the struggle and his prison gang tattoos and stealing cars from trains. I don't think I can survive without that grounding. I don't want to lose my firm support system called family and friends but I feel that by entering college next fall I will be the outcast.

Going to college will be one thing none of them have ever accomplished...

I don't want to be the odd person out anymore. I've suffered that enough already. I won't fit in where I'm going or where I came from.