We were kids... High school. A safe home, free from the anger and hatred that flows from the streets of every city we have ever known. This place where smiles flow in the shadows of routine. This place where, almost certain of the guilt of betrayal, one hides one's anguish in the desperate and fearful wait for secret incursions with whispered confessions. We were kids when we arrived. I was a kid when I arrived. I had tasted a few small trickles of life and I too had become certain of some things. I clung to an identity fearing that I might be seen as a child who didn't know. I wasn't ready to listen and I still am not. Not to those who don't like diversity. Not for those who post the same agenda on every face, but for a different Ivy League university. Not to those who with their power, their judgment squeeze from me, from my desires and my dreams. Not to those who stifle my screams of pain and anger in the belief that world peace can only be achieved through some king of cotton shirt diplomacy with frozen smiles, sweaty rolls instead of a whole lot of caring. You hear me in this silence: You must know what needs to be healed, so shout, shout! . . . Someone did it once, this guy who hated more and was angrier than anyone I had ever met (even angrier than my older brother), it was last year and he went crazy just for that one night and also he was really drunk. It took a few days before the disconcerting rumors hit me and that guy was my roommate, the bravest guy I've ever met. We were children when we arrived and as children we grow, we fall, we make mistakes, even make believe. When children navigate the tangled web of sick societies with a multitude of streets, paths, alleys and even underground shopping malls, we sometimes feel confused, lost and uncertain. Decisions loom, and our future is relegated to the pale glimmer of role models whose paths we can hope to follow. But what once worked, what we once valued, may now have lost our esteem. Relevance continually shifts and streets deteriorate into crumbling empires, traffic flows change and as we wait to cross the street we find cars increasingly reluctant to stop and fewer and fewer people ready to join us at the curb.