Ashleigh Giannoccaro

Southern Design

Underneath these gang tattoos beats a heart three times a year. I'm a slow puncture death, a murderer, a rapist, and a number. I killed my best friend. Death doesn't stalk me, it walks ahead of me by twenty-eight paces. I went home after I sold my soul to the devils. I thought life would begin, I was a free man, instead within days the bullets fly and my last hope dies with the slain. There is nothing left to live for in this world. I belong to the 28s, I'll always belong to the 28s. The woman across the road judges me, she hates me, and takes every opportunity to let me know it. Yet, somehow, when grief etched our names down in the book of the dead, we dared be bold enough to find love. I'm not a good man, and I'm not pretty. I come from the Cape Flats where my life was reduced to a prison cell number. In all this ugliness I found beauty, innocence, and forgiveness. I can't forgive myself for the crimes I've committed, but I'll die trying to earn hers. In a world where nothing matters, she does.

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