The New Old Neighborhood

Now easy prey for rapists and for thugs, she walked along the streets . Like ribbons frayed, they ran, pot-holed, where dealers pushed their drugs, where hoods and vagrants played and drunks lay splayed like garbage by the curbs. Decrepit stores stood vacant - business ceased. No niceties took place behind those buildings where the whores bent woodenly (for cheap) down on their knees. A rain began to fall. . . became intense. It pounded her; knocked memories ajar. Envisioning the pleasant residents from days long gone, she bolted to her car. And glancing back, she wished the downpour would just swallow whole that "new" old neighborhood.