Examples of work by young people from creative magazines produced at Trafford Youth Offending Services
Face To Face
How would you like it if ya dad died in the local shop
Knowing every day ya got to walk that way
Knowing it every step of the way
Looking at the flat where he died
Knowing he got left outside
With a sign round his neck and a dog bowl
at the side
Piss take the man's gonna die
People think they know what it feels like inside
Sarcastic bastards I see it in their eyes
My mother thinks it's one big fucking dream
She thinks one day he'll come back on the scene
If I loose the plot if I get locked away
I wouldn't want me little sister seeing me that way
Me little sister took way
My dad died of smack
And people think they can have a laugh
Behind my back
They don't know how to react
Face to face
Lee, seventeen.
Now a Free Man
He stood alone by the raging sea
Now knowing that he was free
No longer kept under lock and key
His own man now was he
Now knowing that he was free
He stood alone filled with glee
His own man now was he
But he was just one of three
He stood alone filled with glee
By the old oak tree
But he was only one of three
When will the others flee?
By the old oak tree
Stood but one of three
When will the others flee?
One day he could be just like me
And stand alone and be free.
Aaron, fifteen.
..JPG)
"Obviously there's been a lot of stuff going on in my life and when I can get peace and quiet I can write. In prison they take the mick, they throw your work away. When I was there my Grandad wrote me a poem and sent it in. It was basically saying you have to be a fake when you're in there. You have to be a different person. If you're soft you're going to get what's coming to you. If people got into writing they'd realise. If they wrote it down and read it back to themselves they realise who they really are."
Dean, seventeen.