I used to live in a border town and would frequently cross into Mexico to attend shows or visit friends. For those of you who are not familiar, Juarez is a city plagued by cartel violence, which is reason enough not to go, but as a teenager, the cartel seemed less like a real threat and more like the 'boogey man'. In 2008, for New Years Eve, a few of us planned to go to Juarez to celebrate with friends. Before going, my mother had begged me not to go, saying "bullets don't have names - it doesn't matter who they're intended for if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Please don't go." We went. That night, as we were leaving a friends house to meet up with the rest of our group, I had an unexplainable panic attack. To this day, I cannot explain the sense of dread, the unshakeable feeling that if we left right at that moment, something terrible would happen. Of course, I was laughed at. I refused to get into the car, I was genuinely shaken, but we had places to go, so after a few minutes of arguing and a lot of "don't be silly" comments, we left. Had we left a moment earlier, we would be dead. As we drove through Juarez, we came upon a scene out of a movie, except they never tell you how much blood there really is or what brain matter actually looks like. There were two blacked out suvs, one was flipped over, riddled with bullets, the drivers arm mangled in the window, head smashed, the other was on the sidewalk, two wheels in the air, front end smashed into a wall, also riddled with bullets, the driver's brains on the windows and dash. The worst though, was the small white hatchback, the front end and passenger side was destroyed, crumpled against a telephone pole. This little hatchback was just collateral damage, just a little extra carnage, just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have been us. The wheels of the flipped suv were still turning, no bystanders had come to observe yet, and the mexican police hadnt arrived. We were literally the first people to arrive. There was nothing we could have done for these people.. and who knows who may have still been lurking? We chose to drive through the wreckage rather than to wait for the notoriously corrupt cops to arrive. I didn't tell anyone for months. I will never forget the image. Had we left a moment earlier, maybe our car would have been the one against the telephone pole.

My mom was right.

I dont talk to most of the people i was with that night, but of the ones I do talk to, one still has nightmares, the other never thinks about it unless it is brought up.

That was the last night I spent in Juarez. It is now 2017 and I have not been back since.