My Mistake

I doubt you'll open this letter, once you see my name attached, but if you do open it and read it like I hope, even if you choose not to forgive me, maybe you'll have a better understanding of me. I don't want you to pity me, and I'm not writing to fuel you with excuses for my actions. I take full responsibility for what I did and how it has effected you. Although I could never understand your pain, because I have never been on the receiving end of the pain that I caused you, I am not without pain.

My mother was a mean woman, not at first but eventually she became bitter and angry, because of her own jacked up life. She hated men, because of how my father treated her. He beat her up damn near every day. I had no choice but to sit by and watch, too scared to do anything, I can't remember a day she didn't scream in horror and cry. Every memory full of arguments, rage, and drinking. One day she finally had enough. He came home told her he was leaving us, for his other family of whom he had 2 kids with and another on the way. When my mother objected, he beat her senseless and threatened to take me too, because she was undeserving of his seeds. He called her all kinds of names. On his way toward the door, he grabbed my arm, forced me up and hauled me toward the door. She shot him...six times before he could twist the door knob open...I was 10. The cops came and concluded it was self defense, but my mother was never the same. Me either. A few years later I met and started hanging with Marco, Denis, and Tyson, the brothers from other mothers, my crew. We all didn't have much, scraping to get by, but we had each others back. What one didn't have, if the others had it, it was yours. We looked out for each other. They taught me the value of family and friendship. The hood has a way of keeping you stranded in ways. Eventually we became victims of the ghetto. House robberies, poorness on every corner, drug epidemic, prostitution and the list goes on. I didn't want to live like a victim so I came up with a plan, to go to a couple of rich houses, score enough to start somewhere away from here.

I put the streets and my plan on hold when my mama got sick. Something of a broken heart, liver failure and cancer. It ate her away, every move no matter how small caused her to cry out in pain, even blinking hurt. Medications stopped helping, so she quit taking them. Eating made her more sick, she could barely hold water without throwing up. She truly suffered til the end. Her last words were an apology to me. She cried the entire time she spoke, the sheer pain from talking made her body tense up. She told me how sorry she had been, for all the pain she caused me, and the hurt my father caused us. She asked for my forgiveness, and my biggest regret has always been, that I wasn't able to at the time. I was angry at her for leaving me like this, with no one, with nothing. I was angry of the choices she made. She told me to be safe, be something better than what she could give to me. For a couple years I kept that silent promise to her. I stayed out of trouble, I was in school. I was ducked off. Who would've known that a couple years later my plan would catch up to me. It wasn't a good plan to begin with, at the time, I was fed up with being poor, and watching our moms bust their asses for pennies. Dads ain't no help and they didn't care about us. I just wanted to take from the rich and give to the poor. Some Robin Hood type plan you know, it sounded good in the heat of that moment, but the worse part was probably telling the crew the plan. Turns out they never stopped planning, and when they reached out to me, they thought they perfected it. We all had a job to do, Marco, he's good with hacking, so he was going to hack the security system, Denis is the fastest, he had been scoping the place for a long while, studying the ins and outs, he was going to get in, get the stashes of money and jewelry and any small pricey valuables. Tyson he's the muscle, in case things get out of hand, he would be used to enforce or negotiate, smooth talking has always been a great skill of his. Me? I'm the best driver, so I was assigned look-out and driver. Where I'm from loyalty is everything and with my mom passing, I wasn't in too good of a position to say no.

The day of, every fiber of my body didn't want to do it, but I went. We pulled up to the house...your house. There was no cars in the front lot, so we did everything as planned. We parked around back, for the quickest gettaway. Marco, cut the security, Denis filled duffel bags and tossed them to Tyson, who tossed it into the car. I waited anxiously in the car, looking in every direction, when I looked up front it was too late, your husband was charging toward us, shotgun in hand and yelling. I yelled at the crew, but more shots sounded, this time followed by Denis's screams. I heard the sound of the gun cock back again, as they rushed towards the back of the car opening the back doors in panic. More shots followed. As Tyson and Marco tried to lift Denis in the car, he was hit again. That was the hit that killed him. The body dropped and we pulled off. I didn't know Tyson bought a strap until he started shooting back. He missed your husband, but the scream of your son still haunts my dreams to this day. We pulled into the safehouse, that wasn't so safe, the cops had already been alerted and on to us. I didn't expect it to be a shoot out but that's what it was, ending Tyson and Marco's life. I was shot, unfortunately I'm still alive, living with the pains of the past. A lost boy, without his brothers. I lost everything and everyone that day, it's been 5 years since I've lost my freedom and all I can do is sit and wonder about you. I doubt sorry is enough but it's all I have. I'm so sorry. If I had the power to take it all back I would, but since I don't, I figured this would be the next right thing. Beings you only knew of my brothers from the incident, it was safe for you to assume they followed the stereotype of hoodlums, street thugs, and monsters who deserved to die the way they did. Truth is, they were so much more than what the hood made them out to be. They had talent, if given the chance, we each would have come out the hood and made something out of ourselves. Like Marco, he would have been apart of homeland security. His moms house was always getting broken into and they couldn't afford a security system which is how Marco got to be tech-savvy to begin with. Denis most definitely would have been on television, running the marathons, or hopping hurdles on the Olympics, he was super fast. Being the victim of family and school bullying, Denis learned to run his ass off, honestly he would have given Forrest Gump a run for his money. Tyson wanted nothing more than to be into body building or any athletic sport besides football. Oddly enough he was the size of a line backer, but wanted nothing to do with football. His sport of choice, wrestling, boxing, MMA, or, you'd never guess this, but golf. He was surprisingly great at it, and I've never seen him feel safer than sneaking in and sitting on the golf courses at night. He went there often to escape the whore and crack house, his mother made their house into every night. Then there's me, although I'm good with cars, raised to be like a mechanic, my passion is art. I'm pretty good, but like most unsupported artists, I just tuck it away and do what is easy or reliable. When my mother died, I had nobody, my aunt Dianne let me stay with her, but whenever I didn't please her she made living their hell. Please her in anyway, even sexually. So I would house hop from Marco, Denis or Tyson's home. It wasn't much better, but at the same time, it was. I thought you might want to know that even though we did something wrong, unforgivable, horrible we are not evil monsters. We had dreams, good plans to get up out of the hood, to do better, to be better, but as I write you this letter, I'm afraid it'll be my last. The people in here don't take too well to child killers. Even though I didn't pull the trigger, I might as well have. I've been fighting for my life since day 1, unfortunately one of these days the fight will end with my life, and before that happens, you deserve this letter, this apology and backstory that you would have never heard from anyone else. If you read it, thank you. If not, it still wasn't for nothing.

-Forever Sorry, Mike.

"LIGHTS OUT!"