At Risk

We first saw them as we boarded. They were loud and didn’t look or talk like us, why our destination excited them and why someone would get their apartment building tattooed on their chest escaped us. How could we understand… admittedly at first, we didn’t want to. It was all a big joke until a man who was travelling with the group thanked us for being friendly  

“Each mile we sail marks the furthest distance they had ever been from their neighbourhood in Rome” 

He spoke of his past life in the mafia, how gangs preyed upon him as a boy to join their ranks, explaining that the same could happen to these boys if nobody took the time to see them as something more.