It tastes like heat
Waking you up
In the uncomfortable closeness
Of summer
Patched knees on my pants
Smell of sweaty boyhood
Hands dirty and cut
Breaking bottles in the alley
We learned about fighting
When to run
And other times
There were no places to run
But that treat
So cold
Orange chemical sweetness outside
Sugary vanilla explosion inside
It was worth the walk
Four blocks to the market
A few pennies
For a few minutes
This photo reminds me of the 50/50 ice cream bars of my youth.
Photographic Impressionistic Illusionistic 
Sounds like a rough and tumble youth.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The best fighting tactic is to get away from it. We were in a ‘burb south of LA. Gang life was typical, so our Christian upbringing as a little out of place. We were one generation away from generational poverty. I suspected we were “poor.” I felt it when in third grade, standing in line before class. A sweet little girl in front of me turned and eyed me up and down. She looked right into my eyes and said, “you’re poor.”
In some ways she might be right…
LikeLiked by 1 person
No shame in being poor. Shame is in having bad manners.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Agreed. And if my “poverty” meant wearing clothes owned by my older brothers and getting the occasional charitable food donation….well that’s not poor. We did not go hungry (starvation… I was always “hungry” as a kid), and we had a roof over our heads.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Someone just told me last night that children of poor means are happy regardless because they don’t know what they’re missing. We first world people make ourselves miserable dwelling on all the things that we are “owed”.
LikeLike