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South Central Los Angeles.
A long way from the dream they project on movie screens.
You can hear the crackling of the lit celluloid —
projecting outwards,
telling us what it wants us to see.
Hollywood sells.
Oh, it sells.
Palm trees.
Blondes.
Fortune.
La La Land.
La La La… what a melody it is.
In La La Land… this city of Angels, that story plays well.
They want you to believe all is well.
All is but a dream.
But not here.
Here, there is no script to follow.
Because this Los Angeles is colder —
colder than a lit cigarette on a rainy day.
Word is…
the warmth you feel?
It ain’t comfort.
It’s survival.
Paychecks stretched thinner by the week.
Rent overdue.
Lights barely kept on.
This is the other reel.
Tucked away.
The one the brochures don’t print.
The X-rated, shunned one.
South Central isn’t built on red carpets.
It’s built on loops.
And some loops don’t need bullets to kill.
Smoke in this city doesn’t just carry gunpowder.
It carries voices.
Arguments.
Private wars that never make the papers.
The cops chase chalk outlines.
But the deeper story?
Some killings leave no bodies.
Just silence.
Kitchens gone cold.
Walls scarred with words.
Like tonight.
A loudness… a cascade of voices rising.
A father and daughter locked in a script —
I’ve heard it too many times.
“You were never there when I was a kid.”
“You are a bastard. I hate you and everything you’ve ever been.”
“Well, you don’t respect me.”
“You act like a demon.”
“A daughter you are not… you are a demon.”
“You’re not my father.”
“You are a piece of shit… I fucken hate you.”
The words ricochet through the house like spent shells.
Sharp at first…
then fading into the dull hum of a broken record.
AHHH… AHHH…
It rips through the silence of the night.
All is silent except for the disrespect,
spat like machine guns,
like Uzis,
trying to massacre each other —
wanting to shred each other down.
The loop of trauma.
The loop of hate.
The loop doesn’t skip.
It just spins louder.
And the cruel joke?
No one listens.
Because listening would mean:
Am I responsible, even partly, for your misfortune?
No. It cannot be.
“I am your FATHER.
What have I done to you?”
“I owe you nothing.
You’re acting like a demon.”
The louder it gets…
the less anyone inside really hears.
Because hearing could be more painful than anything.
So instead… they shred each other
with the sharpness of their words.
You want to break in.
This is one misfortunate song of trauma —
a record that never got repaired,
just replayed until the grooves cut deeper.
Your job is to witness.
Because not every hood story bleeds.
Some echo endlessly…
and nobody listens.
⸻
Sorry for not being there.
Sorry for never saying sorry.
Sorry for rewriting your pain as not my responsibility.
⸻
Red bud turning gray as the cigarette burns out.
Word is this father left his daughter long before tonight —
left her crying to her mother:
“Why doesn’t my father love me?”
The loop don’t change.
It just plays —
until somebody cuts the record.
The hood speaks.
🥷 You don’t have to believe. You can ignore it. But if you knew… would you believe it happens?
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