Outside of going to church and school, I was basically a homebody. I rarely could go anywhere with my friends. When I did go outside, I would always have to stay in the front of the house. I thought that my mother was real strict. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized she was just trying to protect me and keep me from being exposed to everything negative that was going on.
Once I aged and started to move around more, I would start to experience more negative things happening to the people who were close to me and the people who I loved. As a black male teen, I already had a target on my back, whether from the police or people I didn’t get along with, but I always watched my back and moved with the people I trusted the most.
My friends always tried to get me to go places I couldn’t go. Most of the times when the people I hung out with would go out they would do something real stupid that would get them in a lot of trouble. I was scared of trouble because I knew that with trouble there would be consequences, and those consequences I did not want a part of. I tried my best to stay out of trouble. Read more here.