In the shadow of despair, at Homestead, we stood,

A place to punish youth.

A place of control, a place to be misunderstood.

A juvenile holding facility.

I never wore the label of a criminal’s guise,

I never committed a crime,

The state’s convenience placed me here, to my surprise.

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I had hope, before Homestead.

Before this wretched place, Favored student I was crowned,

The state put me there because it was a storage place.

Before- an honored student where my hopes were renowned.

I learned a lot at Homestead though,

Homestead taught me lessons of a different kind,

It wasn’t the staff’s job to teach children.

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In its darkened halls, shattered dreams I’d find.

I learned how to properly hold silverware

I learned to grip it in sinister plays,

in a way that made it easier to use them as weapons.

A skill better admired by peers, in the darkest of days.

Most not prone to nurture, but to punish and condemn,

For society’s sins, they deemed it just to torment children instead.

To punish youth for the horrible things that society had done to them.

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I witnessed riots, yet these were children.

Words became weapons, in a world gone astray,

Children cried as the police laughed at them.

Children, powerless and afraid- police mocked, in a cruel display.

We ate plain oatmeal for breakfast.

In orange vests, we walked, in silence and despair,

We carried buckets filled with dried concrete.

In Homestead’s heart, we carried burdens hard to bear.

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We dug holes in the sand and filled them in again.

Counselors spoke words that cut like knives,

Told the boys that boys can’t be raped, only girls.

Told the girls they deserved to suffer, in their twisted lives.

We wore orange vests and red jumpsuits.

one counselor, darker still, left a haunting scar,

made sure we knew the proper way to slit our wrists,

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Taught the way to end it all, a method bizarre.

that way the next time we wanted to die, we would do it right.

Yet I never belonged in this place of pain,

They said if we died, it would do the world a favor.

The kids knew I was different, but accepted me, just the same.

I never fit in at Homestead.

An outcast I became, in a world so cruel and grim,

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The kids knew I wasn’t like them,

Yet in our shared isolation, we found kinship within.

They accepted me anyway.

Homestead was a nightmare, a chapter of my youth,

I was an outcast but amongst outcasts, I belonged.

They couldn’t steal the spark of hope, the essence of my truth.

I was just like them, we were the same.