Sallie walked in this place
Past the beautiful gardens
Past the lovely cafes
Filled with flowers so sweet and nice
That you could drown in their scent
Past the aesthetic fairy lights looming above
That she would eventually take a picture of
And put a filter over
And post on Instagram
Sallie walked past the Starbucks
And ordered a pumpkin spice latte
Sipping it as she strutted down the sidewalk
Cup in hand
She gawked at the macaroon shops
At the cute clothes
From Victoria’s Secret
At the new makeup samples from Sephora
At the windows filled with fidget spinners and lollipops
Sallie walked past the walls people took pictures in front of
Spray painted with cute art
Instead of graffiti
The streets were filled with white
And everything was pristine clean
Everything was pretty
From the upscale restaurants selling kale smoothies
To the fancy apartments starting at $10,000 for rent
And Sallie thought this place was wonderful
Sallie walked in this place unaware
Unaware of the silent evil
Brewing in construction sites and development projects
Unaware of the home
That was no longer the home
Of the local people who lived here
Unaware of the forced migration
To make room
For white hipsters in flannels and thick-rimmed glasses
Sallie walked in this place oblivious
Oblivious to the extinction of a culture
That was now replaced by another
If Starbucks counts as a culture
Oblivious to the increase in housing prices
To line the pocketbooks of the rich
And keep the poor at the margins
Oblivious to the fact
That pretty does not equate to good
An onlooker watched saddened
That she kind of liked it here too
That this was inevitable
That the opposite would lead to stagnation
And more poverty
That the people strolling here were ignorant to it all
And so she vowed
Not to be like them
Not to be like Sallie
So when she walked in this place
She would be aware
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
