The Victims of Gentrification.

We are the ones you tell to get out.

We are the ones you want to go away.

We are the ones who have no say despite our voices being broadcast the loudest.

We are the ones that never get to stay.

Our neighborhood exists as two entities.

Night and day,

before and after the destruction of something great.

They love to displace us.

They love to erase us.

We are the victims of gentrification.

The generation of being sold a vision that will only impact the desired.

The generation of watching our cities with soul

turn into hipster hellholes.

We have lived here our whole lives.

Why should we be subjected to leave

just so someone else can move in?

They neglected us the whole time we lived here,

refused to give us love and money,

and now they want us gone.

What the hell?

This is not fair!

In your eyes, are we not deserving of affordable housing?

They built our neighborhood flawed

so they can justify destroying it.

They created the ghetto

then became embarrassed of the reputation it gained.

Our stories, our histories, and our traumas

hold no weight to you.

You do not care to remember the memories we created here.

We are the broken people that travel on broken roads to our broken homes.

How can we live with structure without a reliable infrastructure?

Our structure is crumbling, tumbling down.

Our safety does not matter.

We deserve roofs over our heads too.

We lay here battered and broken

knowing that our exits result in profits.

You do not see us as people.

You see us as money signs.

This was your idea from the start.

Tear us apart with no plan of rebuilding us.

It is the spin cycle.

The same process

with different faces and names

in a never-ending repetition.

They call gentrification a way

to make neighborhoods new and improved.

I beg the question,

new and improved for whom?