2014 National Day of Writing

Secrets are shadows hidden to those facing the sun and to native Philadelphians the shadows are all we know. Outsiders know us as a place to visit not a place in need. To us philly isn’t a place to give worship but a battlefield for education and incarceration. The authorities watch over us from a young age trying to encourage us yet unknowingly break us down in the process. Our pubic school foundation is crumbling down on us every year. Moving from one problem to the next. Being in high school I have the abilities to fight for my rights but who will be there for the younger children. To me I don’t live in a historic land, I live in a place of no return. I’ve talked to some of my classmates about what they love about Philadelphia and the only thing they could honestly say was “I love it because it’s where I was born and raised.” But upon further questioning they gave no reason for why they would come back to Philadelphia after  hopefully becoming successful. I believe that it is because of those shadows of secrets that we could not even imagine ourselves returning to a place we once called home.The shadows of secrets isn’t really a shadow or even a secret. It’s just the facts that people skip over when visiting. We’re not the worst city in the country but we could ALWAYS be better.