Letter to the Future Me

Ears open, little one.

In this skin,

you enter the world a whispered verdict—

born a crime.

The courtroom of life

has no need for evidence,

no room for defense.

No judge, no jury—just sentence.

So read.

Read until the ink

feels like your only inheritance.

When a brother falls—

head split by the silence of sirens—

remember:

that stain on his shirt

isn’t ketchup.

They’ll say:

“He had it coming.”

“Another hood story.”

“Gangbanger.”

“Dealer.”

“No angel.”

But that boy—

he was a second chance

swaddled in hope.

His mother’s heartbeat

walking on borrowed time.

And that girl?

She mothered her siblings

before she bled.

She was home

in a house made of ache.

They say crime doesn’t pay.

But I’ve seen wealth

stacked on bones.

Gold teeth grinning

from stolen lands.

Empires carved from screams.

So tell me—

really?

Does crime not pay,

or is it just a matter

of whose hand is on the receiving end?

What hand holds the spoils,

what skin gets the sentence,

and what shade gets the story rewritten?

They preach:

“Money means nothing,

you can’t take it with you.”

Then hoard it like lifelines,

claim land like they’re

mapping heaven.

Building portfolios

for an afterlife

that doesn’t do bank transfers.

They speak of

generational curses—

“The sins of the father...”

But our hands were clean.

Still, we bore

chains we didn’t forge,

wounds we didn’t open.

They said we were broken,

offered idols to fix us.

Told us karma keeps score—

what goes around comes around.

But why

does it always find my doorstep?

Why’s the return address

in my name,

on a package

I never ordered?