In my town, the rich and the poor are divided by a set of tracks. A set of train tracks at least two miles long, starting up at Livingston Street, pausing for breath on Main Street, and continuing on Shawsheen Street. On the upper end of the tracks lies the North, where most of the rich people live. There’s barely any crime, barely any drug usage, just happy, wealthy people going on about their busy lives. On the lower end lies the South, where I live. The south is full of “little homes,” as I call them. My house is off of one of the main roads in the southern area, called South Street. The street runs for about four miles, and I live at the end. Littering the sidewalks like trash are small, ranch style homes, with no garage and a driveway the size of a small school bus. To me, it seems as if the lead construction worker fell asleep on the job, and let the new employees finish the job-by building the same house over and over again. Each house has the same blue siding and the same white or purple shutters. The occasional house even has brown siding with green shutters. The same people walk down the street- a group of gangster 18-year-olds who probably dropped out of school for no good reason at all. They walk around with their pants sagging, cigar in hand, puffing out smoke at the incoming cars.

When I was younger, I used to go to school on Salem Street, a street right off of South Street. While playing outside for recess one day, I saw people just like them, walking along the playground fence. I coughed and hacked as one walked by, filling my young and fragile lungs with something foul, something that I didn’t understand. That’s how it was, and still is in the South. The residents here are either drugged drop-outs or, like everyone else new to this little town, are just unaware of what goes on.

Continuing to travel down South Street, you’ll reach two roads. One is Kingfisher Drive, and the other is Jennies Way. Turn right onto Jennies Way, but hold your nose! On the right side is a pig farm, which reeks from the first day of Spring to the last day of Fall. The farm smells so bad, the town odor control has put up petitions and threatened to close the farm, but their threats are empty chairs at empty tables. My house is just a short walk from the farm, right next to the owner’s house. I live in a colonial style house, a house with two floors separated by a flight of stairs near the main entrance. Jennies Way is full of these types of houses, since we are one of the few neighborhoods with big houses in the southern part. Sometimes, I wonder what it’s like in the rich part, up in North. Do they see drug deals up and down the main road? Do their houses repeat each other, like a broken record player? Maybe they don’t see things the way I do, but from my where I stand, the view isn’t great. Maybe someday I’ll see what it’s like to live in a rich place, but for now, I’m grounded.  

In my town, the rich and the poor are divided by a set of tracks. A set of train tracks at least two miles long, starting up at Livingston Street, pausing for breath on Main Street, and continuing on Shawsheen Street. On the upper end of the tracks lies the northern end, where most of the rich people live. There’s barely any crime, barely any drug usage, just happy, wealthy people going on about their busy lives. On the lower end lies the southern area, where I live. It's is full of “little homes,” as I call them. My house is off of one of the main roads in the South, called South Street. The street runs for about four miles, and I live at the end. Littering the sidewalks like trash are small, ranch style homes, with no garage and a driveway the size of a small school bus. To me, it seems as if the lead construction worker fell asleep on the job, and let the new employees finish the job-by building the same house over and over again. Each house has the same blue siding and the same white or purple shutters. The occasional house even has brown siding with green shutters. The same people walk down the street- a group of gangster 18-year-olds who probably dropped out of school for no good reason at all. They walk around with their pants sagging, cigar in hand, puffing out smoke at the incoming cars.

When I was younger, I used to go to school on Salem Street, a street right off of South Street. While playing outside for recess one day, I saw people just like them, walking along the playground fence. I coughed and hacked as one walked by, filling my young and fragile lungs with something foul, something that I didn’t understand. That’s how it was, and still is in the Southern area. The residents here are either drugged drop-outs or, like everyone else new to this little town, are just unaware of what goes on.

Continuing to travel down South Street, you’ll reach two roads. One is Kingfisher Drive, and the other is Jennies Way. Turn right onto Jennies Way, but hold your nose! On the right side is a pig farm, which reeks from the first day of Spring to the last day of Fall. The farm smells so bad, the town odor control has put up petitions and threatened to close the farm, but their threats are empty chairs at empty tables. My house is just a short walk from the farm, right next to the owner’s house. I live in a colonial style house, a house with two floors separated by a flight of stairs near the main entrance. Jennies Way is full of these types of houses, since we are one of the few neighborhoods with big houses in the South. Sometimes, I wonder what it’s like in the rich part, up in the North. Do they see drug deals up and down the main road? Do their houses repeat each other, like a broken record player? Maybe they don’t see things the way I do, but from my where I stand, the view isn’t great. Maybe someday I’ll see what it’s like to live in a rich place, but for now, I’m grounded.