-Can be read as a stand alone-
Heart: In the streets of Atlanta it is what many will die behind, and what many will get themselves killed trying to prove.
But for some, heart comes naturally. It doesn't have to be proven, it is simply there from th...
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"It's an East Atlanta love letter who gone love better nobody because I say so and my words like a draco..." •••
Driving down the street with the Purple Reign mixtape blaring through the speakers gave me a buzz as the waves of the base flowed into my body while the tension of the work ahead blew out. Stopping at the red light I looked steadily out of the tinted windows allowing me to see the bobbing heads of the packed car on my right. Some of them turned to my car pointing and looking, laughs on their faces as they dapped up surely discussing what all they'd be doing if they had it. I couldn't help but chuckle at their antics as they carried on unaware of my gaze. Even through my speakers, I could hear the melodies of the song playing alongside me from their car. They seemed like the young, unbothered, and typical teens to be found on the East Atlanta streets.
Typical teens living a typical life that I had never even began to know.
I glanced back to the street just as the light turned green, and pushing the gas I took off down the street in the R8, the hum of the engine purring in tandem with the speakers. The gunmetal Audemar on my wrist felt heavy as I drifted freely down the streets deeper into the hood. The houses got closer to together, filled with more boarding. The grasses got taller, but the people became more prominent. The community may not have looked like much based on its architecture, but its community still fought to thrive.
It continued to fight against me. My jaw clinched harder as I went through the same sequence of emotions and detrimental reflections that occurred ever time I got closer to my place of work.
It hadn't always been like this. Once upon a time, I was able to tune the morality of the job completely out. It was normal for me to pass down these streets and think nothing of the people walking them, the houses hanging on by threads, or the blood I'd splattered along the pavements. Now, I couldn't escape the impact of all of those things if I dared to try: which I did at first. However, when you go playing nick-knock on deaths door and get closer than you'd ever had to being caught, coming back to reality has more consequences than blessings it seemed.
I'd gotten shot up on a raid about ten months ago, and my mind hadn't been the same since. I didn't know what the hell was in those bullets, but when I was back to the land of the living I knew that I was on the clock. I didn't have too much time left in this drug game I was currently in. It wasn't the life I wanted to live, and I couldn't continue to live it when I had no reason to other than the fact that it was what I'd most consistently known since I was sixteen.
I had heart, but the cost I had to pay to maintain it had become too much all at once for other reasons outside of the blood on my hands that ran in a constant stream whenever they were touched by water. One of which being this newly prominent guilt. I couldn't think about the others though as I pulled into the housing unit. As I turned in, I checked my mirrors and surroundings and not too long after I got in I saw the red Range Rover pulling in behind me. I cut the engine once I was parked and got out adjusting the black bomber on my body and leather gloves I wore when coming to work.
