It’s been two years since I was sent to Agape. Ironic it should be named that, there is no love in this city. Here I am surrounded by the regret of others, cesspools of addicts, and gangs made up of those who’ve committed the same crimes. Agape is the city of redemption so they say, but no one tries to redeem themselves. Not really. Some people can’t. Being born a bastard isn’t something you can change. The way one chooses to present, blurring the lines between men and women, preferring men or women, isn’t something you can change. Nor is being kin to a rapist, falsely accused or not. I am here because I murdered a thief. A thief not of materialistic want, but a thief of trust, a thief of innocence, a thief of Storge. The rich are also here, the come to Agape of their own free will. They come for entertainment, the casinos and red light districts where they can buy the love of personable men and women for an hour. They are shameless because they have money, and this is the place for them to spend it on hard liquor and kinky sex. Morals don’t seem to carry over here. I see these rich people sometimes, dressed in robes and jewels and bulky sunglasses. The latter I don’t understand. It’s always night time here, why shield your eyes from the stars? *** …show more content…
The apartment was dark, the only source of light was the streetlamp from outside. Her tone was flat and I could see the steady flow of tears running down her neck into her shirt even from the far corner in which I
Today's world is filled with both great tragedy and abundant joy. In a densely populated metropolis like New York City, on a quick walk down a street you encounter homeless people walking among the most prosperous. Unfortunately, nine times out of ten the prosperous person will trudge straight past the one in need without a second thought. A serious problem arises when this happens continually. The problem worsens when you enter a different neighborhood and the well-to-do are far from sight. Many neighborhoods are inhabited only by the most hopeless of poverty - ridden people while others downtown or across the park do not care, or are glad to be separated from them. Such is the problem in New York City today and in Mott Haven in Jonathan Kozol's Amazing Grace. I have lived in New York City all my life and I had no idea that these problems were going on so close to home. If I live about three miles away from Mott Haven and I am not aware of the situation there, then who is?
A poem which evokes a mood of pity in the reader is “Assisi” by Norman MacCaig. In this poem, MacCaig recounts an experience that shaped his own life while visiting the Basilica of St Francis of Assisi in Assisi, Italy. While the church is known for it’s outstanding beauty and priceless artwork, the poet discovers a beggar with severe physical disabilities begging outside the church. MacCaig then exposes the irony of the church constructed to celebrate a man devoted to poor, is now a symbol of hypocrisy. Instead of being a lasting monument to the original and noble philosophies of St Francis. Norman MacCaig evinces pity within us by effectively applying techniques such as vivid imagery, emotive word choice and contrast.
I’d never been in a house like this. It had rooms off of rooms, and in each of them were deep sofas and chairs, woven carpet over polished hard-wood floors, tasteful paintings on the walls. She asked if I was hungry, and she opened the fridge and it was stuffed with food-cold cuts and cheeses, fresh
Poverty and homelessness are often, intertwined with the idea of gross mentality. illness and innate evil. In urban areas all across the United States, just like that of Seattle. in Sherman Alexie’s New Yorker piece, What You Pawn I Will Redeem, the downtrodden. are stereotyped as vicious addicts who would rob a child of its last penny if it meant a bottle of whiskey.
The three sources I have selected are all based on females. They are all of change and transformation. Two of my selections, "The Friday Everything Changed" by Anne Hart, and "Women and World War II " By Dr. Sharon, are about women’s rites of passage. The third choice, "The sun is Burning Gases (Loss of a Good Friend)" by Cathleen McFarland is about a girl growing up.
An individual's inclement to uphold his or her responsibility to his or her community depends greatly on society’s treatment towards their own self, changing them to become selfish or selfless towards their peers. Abigail Williams, who has been neglected by someone she loves, can feels an insatiable hunger for vengeance towards her community, whereas John Proctor, who live a respected lifestyle, is encouraged to consider the value of the loss of innocent lives compared to the loss of his own.
I walked into the room on New Year’s Day and felt a sudden twinge of fear. My eyes already hurt from the tears I had shed and those tears would not stop even then the last viewing before we had to leave. She lay quietly on the bed with her face as void of emotion as a sheet of paper without the writing. Slowly, I approached the cold lifeless form that was once my mother and gave her a goodbye kiss.
Hollow eyes glanced around the pristine apartment, the gray scale color scheme seems to match the women clasping her hands together, pursing her lips and searching for approval from the girl that stood in the doorway. Automatically, the girl deduced the woman was quite wealthy, especially in the neighborhood she'd now live in. The streets were busier, filled with nicer cars instead of busted ones without their fenders falling apart at the edge. Her nimble fingers explored the wall as she took careful steps into the living room. Winnie wasn't acclimated to this life style: the wallpaper wasn't being striped at the corners, stainless carpets without nothing questionable left behind, no sign of undesirable critters, and silence. She could finally
tears welling up in her eyes and all she wanted was to be back home
Every morning I lay on the floor in the front parlour watching her door. The blind was pulled down to within an inch of the sash so that I could not be seen.
I could see the fear in her eye, and could feel the pain in her trembling hands. I could sense her discomfort when she talked about the night. I had never known, and never would have guessed, that something happened to her at a party with kids I knew from my school. She told me first. She only told me. She spoke to me about how she can not be in a room with a stranger, or how she feels that part of her died that night. She explained that hugs didn’t feel good anymore, they felt intrusive. She explained that she won’t stay in a room with a male teacher if the other students leave. Every part of her life, she explained, has been changed. She wasn’t the same girl anymore, and she blamed herself for it. Even contemplating suicide, like many victims often do, seemed better than living with the memories. She was too afraid to talk to her parents, because she had drank a little the night of the incident; and too afraid to tell her friends, because they thought that the guy was cool. She didn’t trust anyone anymore, not even her old best guy friends. She had known him; they had been friends in junior high. She knew him…
Marley followed her up some creaky stairs to a bedroom; Indie knocked on the door then opened it. Marley gasped audibly as an old woman stared at her from the corner of the room. The old woman was missing her right eye and her face was severely burnt, blood was dripping down her face onto her already stained
In the dead of night, a pot of cold water poured over her. She quickly opened her eyes, the man was standing next to her, but she couldn’t see his face.
As I arrived at her apartment she didn’t answer the door, I just went in. I walked down the hall way into her bedroom where she had pills and a beer and a list wrote out to make sure this would be her last recipe, a recipe of death. All I could do was yell, “What the hell are you thinking, he is not worth your life!” I started grabbing the pills, putting them back in a container and taking the beer. I hid the pills in my purse and went to get water. I begged with her to drink the water and remind...
her face as she looked out of the window and saw her hometown for the