Poem at Central Booking

                     By DeAndre McCullough

Silent screams and broken dreams

Addicts, junkies, pushers and fiends

Crowded spaces and sad faces

Never look back as the police chase us

Consumed slowly by chaos, a victim of the streets,

Hungry for knowledge, but afraid to eat.

A life of destruction, it seems no one cares,

A manchild alone with burdens to bear.

Trapped in a life of crime and hate,

It seems the ghetto will be my fate.

If I had just one wish it would surely be,

That God would send angels to set me free

Free from the madness, of a city running wild,

Freed from the life of a ghetto child.

Source: The Corner (1997) by David Simon and Edward Burns