The streets laugh at me as I struggle to climb out of the shadows. All around me people say just give in to the inevitable. I feel like I am suffocating sometimes. All over the neighborhood, I see people with broken spirits who are prisoners of forgotten dreams. They wander aimlessly as if they are just waiting for it all to end. It seems the harder that I try to climb the ladder towards the light, the more I get weighed down with all of the problems of the here and now. It is a daily struggle just to survive. Some people turn to playing with a ball in hopes of catching a shooting star out of the dreariness of this life. Others pick up a gun and some drugs and hope for the quick exit. Most get what they want, just not in the way they figured. Every time I get hit, I dig deeper into a book. To some it seems like a pointless waste of time, but I know it holds the key to what I want. It holds the key to my dream, the freedom I so desire, the freedom I believe in. If I can just hold on and get past one more month, one more day, one more moment, I can cross the bridge out of my unchosen place and climb all of the way out into the light, into the freedom I dream of.