Dark Angel

Chapter 1

God's saving grace as well as punishment came in the form of a beautiful baby girl.

With the eyes of my future, I hoped that she never experienced my past. Looking into her eyes, everything came flooding to me, my past, my present and my future.

Standing in this hospital room, I never thought that I would have a daughter, never truly wanted one but up until now I never knew the power of pure and true love.

Her chocolate skin and black curly hair was perfection and the sound of her little baby coos were sent from heaven and I swear I heard angels sing through her. My heart smiled and it reached my face as I beamed with pride. I kissed her hand as I held and rocked her back and forth, still not believing that I could create something so damn innocent and good. The hospital room held a strange silence as her mother slept on the hospital bed. I had missed her actual arrival due to the demands of the streets, but the world stopped for her in my eyes, the moment I was able to free myself I ran over here. My life had no meaning up until now and looking into her eyes made me fully understand that there was a God, a loving and forgiving God, for only something this damn precious could come from it.

A slight snore filled my ears as I looked to my left at her mother who was sleeping peacefully. I loved her for giving me this gift, nothing more at this point. Even though she was not planned, she saved us. Realization hit me that I needed to be here and I needed to be in her mothers life and hers. My father wasn't in mine but there was no excuse for me not to be in hers.

Her life needed to be different and nothing like mine. I refuse to have her growing up stressed and confused.

Growing up, I vowed to never be a product of my environment, I vowed to never succumb to the streets and be a "dope boy" as many would call them. Growing up in uptown New Orleans on Jackson Ave, near South Claiborne, one would see Canal Street and envision the possibilities of life and the promises of a bright future. Of course Canal street was the main attraction and by all means, the government knew to keep the main attraction clean but for those people who were not part of the main attraction, for those people who weren't part of the bright lights, we tended to live a bleak life. A life where dope boys were slinging to pregnant women and dope fiends were pissing in the alley way on the side walk, little hood girls rocking their "get it" girl shorts to show off a body that betrayed their age and longed for some type of attention from any man who was willing to give it to her. That was the New Orleans that I saw as a child as well as a teenager.

See, I grew up in the part of town that our government forgot about except for the months of October and November . You would never see a politician walking down pissy streets and walking into abandoned houses except when they were coming to push their empty promises in hopes of you  casting a vote that didn't truly mean a thing.

We all knew that the city was crooked but now, I'm sitting here with a child, a human life, someone who is unfamiliar with this world and this life so what the hell do I do? Where the hell do I go from here? Confusion consumed me in every aspect of the shit.

Shit was easy with just me and her moms, hustled the streets and did what the fuck I had to do to get by but I swear God has a way of slowing you down and this blessing will slow me down for the good. Will it change me? That's honestly something that I can't say. This hustle is what it is and where it is and part of me blames to system but I have to also take responsibility for where I am myself. I had the opportunity to be better and do better but when life hands you lemons, you have to do what you have to do to make lemonade and that's what I did, I made lemonade. I made that shit as sweet as I possibly could.

I can't say that life handed me a rough hand, God just threw some shit at me that I wasn't prepared for and I had to take the necessary steps to make my situation better.