Hi. My name is Gianna Barnes and I'm 12 years old. I live in West Philadelphia, one the most notorious drug cities in the world. This city is over populated with single mothers, dead beat fathers, and gangs. I lie on the floor at night, under my bunk, to avoid being shot in the head with a stray bullet. The hand to hand exchanges can get faulty sometimes. Anything can pop off. But I am alone in this city. For I do not know how I got here. I just appeared in Metal Brooke Orphanage on Kane Street. I'm surrounded by lost souls reaching for a kind, tender motherly hand. Here we dream about what our mothers would look like. I imagine what the touch of her gentle hand would feel like caressing my motherless face. Sometimes a few if us get lucky, to at least know who she was or where we came from. But me, I know nothing about myself. I don't even know what my ethnicity is. I think I am a mixture between Native American or Caribbean. I have curly jet black hair with light eyes, but not really the same complexion as them. I'm more on the white end of the scale. I would say I am rather tall. Probably about 5.4. People say I look like a Barbie doll, but I don't really consider myself as beautiful. I don't believe a little girl is beautiful without a mother.
Before I was introduced to the orphanage system I was put in the foster care program from birth.I was repeatly put into these colorless homes. By colorless I mean, in these homes there was no dominant race. Not black, hispanic, nor white. We weren't defined by our enthnicity. We were just children without homes, mothers, fathers, and hope. Whatever little joy we had, we cherished it, but it was gone like a driveby on a Friday night, because we were awaken by the harsh reality that one day we were all going to go out into the world with no one. No friends, family, nothing, just the little spared item we accumulated over the years. There was no real education. Teachers would say, "If you tried, you won't be this miserable." In the back of my head, I always wanted to slap the black off those teachers. They're a bunch of old bags. All they did was drink bitter coffee and criticize children. I never learned anything in school. School was never going to make me happy. The sqeaky desk and dilapidated books were never a big encouragement for me. My school wasn't a big encouragement to me either. I didn't think of it as a learning environment. It felt little a big prison. Everywhere you turned there were different gangs ready to brawl. The two biggest enemies of each other were the bloods ands the crips. It's funny how these lil ganstas didn't even know what they were enemies for. All they knew was if you born 3 blocks down from West Street on the eastside, then you were a blood. And if you lived in the West Street territory, you were a crip. All around school all you see is "R.I.P." Rest in peace Doggy or Lil Peanut. The sight of these words made my stomach turn, but I don't know why I'm not used to it by now. I guess I just didn't want to accept this harsh reality around me. People died left and right in my city. Sons, brothers, grandkids get carried away in a white bodybag. Mamas gets all dramatic, crying all over the place. Then there's a funeral. Sometimes the killer will deliberately sit amongst the family, with no emotions. Knowing he set his buddy up. A sad sight. I remember when I was in the 5th grade. Everyday before school started everyone would be on the playground. I was hanging on the monkey bars. I was almost to the other side. When all of sudden, all you hear is " Pop Pop Pop Pop ." Another driveby. All I could feel was my body crashing to the sand beneath me. I swear I could feel the earth shake as my heartbeat beat against its sandy crust as I lay my chest against it. Another retaliation. Bloods vs. Crips. The stingy tickle in my throat started to hurt from falling so hard on the ground. I vision started to blur as the tears started to swell up in my eyes. The trobbing pain hurt so bad. This is also a time where I wish I had a mother. So she can hold me and tell everything was okay. But now I want to reveal to you my story. The story of my life as Gianna Barnes.
