We Don’t Need Them

My block is like a lost chapter
in an American history textbook.
A forgotten part of the city
that gentrifiers overlook.
Yards with spare car parts,
mean dogs barking around metal fences,
and boats so old
that they do not remember the last time they sailed.
Apartment complexes made for the working poor
yet pay checks never seem to cover the rent.

The streets are always active.
Kids on the way to school and people walking dogs.
Visitors coming and going at all hours of the night.
Trucks and RV’s permanently parked on to the streets
because you need to be a millionaire like Jeff Bezos
to live in Seattle.

But the sheriffs that patrol our block,
are just hungry and deprived.
Salivating to capture their next prey.
Too scared to come down here on their own,
so they hunt in teams when they make their moves.
They love driving around our block in circles
at random hours hoping to catch someone off guard.
Aggressive and easy to anger.
Within moments, they can have you
with your belly on the cold hard pavement.

But at the end of it,
they have never protected any of us
from the random guns that are heard throughout the night.
Never seen them stop a live robbery in progress like in the TV,
where they heroically tackle a suspect to the floor.
Assigned to stop the sell and use
but they seem so invisible when people are passed out on the streets
from having too much fentanyl in their system.
We don’t need them and we never did.

Ramon Jimenez is an educator and writer from Seattle, Washington. Originally from Los Angeles, Ramon works as a high school social studies and language arts teacher. Along with teaching, he runs a writing program for youth called, “The Boot,” where young people can develop their voices through poetry, spoken word, rap and storytelling. Ramon enjoys writing poetry and short stories that focus on immigrant communities, geopolitics, culture and travel. Ramon’s poems are featured in Rigorous Magazine and The Anti-Languorous Project.