The phone call continues to echo in my mind. I keep waiting for another to tell me this isn’t real. My own home now serves as a reminder that although minutes away you left this world alone. We were just young girls running around as if downtown was our own play ground. Our nights at Kaldis. Our endless dance synchronizations to Premier Gauo. The meals and stories we’d share the next morning reliving snickering at the havoc we wrecked. The way you lit up every room with your prescence and smile made you infectious. Your perfect melanated skin and bone structure. I always wondered how God could make someone so perfect. It was impossible to not be enamored by you, your unwillingness to conform, bend or fold. You were the epitome of life. Now I’m mourning yours. No one preparers you for tragedy despite life having so many. Even then you hope to never lose friends before they’ve seen gray hair. The way memories made from love now haunt you. My sister, my partner in nonsense in joy and sorrow. Please watch over me. Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un.
Dec 21, 2024
Dec 21, 2024 at 10:02 AM UTC
I am going through it. It’s going through me. It’s breaking hope and bones as it passes. Taking the last of me. I cry more than I speak these days. The devil has been fighting for my light since I could remember. Daddy would pick up the bottle and I’d see him real clear. Smiling at my pain and whispering in my ear. In my little room full of fear wishing God would appear. Some days he’d come disguised as my mother but most days I just moved to his rhythm. Angels would ask to cut in here and there but we could never quite figure out our rhythm. I’m too much light to belong with the devil but not enough light to go without dimming heaven.
Nov 2, 2023
Nov 2, 2023 at 11:40 AM UTC
I wondered how this day would feel
I dramatized it in my head to to be honest
Some aha moment that released all the pain
That washed away the resentment and insecurities once tucked away neatly through my smile. I often dreamed of happiness and a sense of fulfillment finding love before you. Life had other plans it seems. I found healing through my own shedding. Layer by layer I strayed further away from your favorite version of me. A wounded, needy, and naive child desperately in need of love. Trying to repress the disappointment I found anger and in the anger I found bitterness and in the bitterness I found shame and in the shame I lost my self esteem and with that I hid from myself. Then I met pity and in the pity I found mercy who gave me grace that led me to forgiveness . No one ever teaches you how to mourn your first love. Only life teaches you how to mourn parts of yourself that once made you whole. Those moments of fragility that must be met with a gentle whisper of love become the only thing that way to gain the pieces lost. To the sweet girl who loved with no bounds you alone are love.
Oct 12, 2022
Oct 12, 2022 at 10:55 PM UTC
I haven't been myself for some months now. I thought I could just push through this like I do everything else I cant. On March 2nd a person I use to consider a friend attempted to sexually assault me. I filed a police report because that is the first thing people who don't believe you ask. Go to hell. I went through this in 2016 and it was not just an attempt. I didn't fight hard enough for justice and another women became a victim. I know it's not my fault but it's hard to truly believe that. I don't want a repeat of that because as women there's so much harmful behavior men display that were just taught to brush under the rug as men just being aint **** No it's predatory. I spoke with Officer Land from the 4th Precinct after calling them several times, having to relive that experience more times than my brain could handle, and even now no detective has contacted me. I'm not going through this again. I'm not staying silent and dealing with all this pain in silence anymore. I want repercussions for this man not understanding no, climbing on top of me and me having to hold my legs together for dear life to not be put back into a defiled state. My body can not handle anymore violence in the name of men being men. So if I can't get justice then the whole world can know who you really are because you crossed boundaries once and I believed you were just too incoherent but that naivety is gone. You're blocked on everything and calling me on a fake number threatening me with a lawyer. It's harassment and I'm exhausted. I've cried for help and it feels like nobody is really hearing me because everyone always expects me to get past it. If I don't bring it up it's not followed upon so I'm gonna advocate for myself and stand up for myself this time around openly and unapologetically.
Sep 14, 2021
Sep 14, 2021 at 3:00 PM UTC
I seek refuge from my womanhood I run into the dark corners of what is feminism and found no solace, equality does not belong to my skin, sisterhood extended out of pity as if any love could erase the past, at times i wonder if i am just a way to ease their shame, if the kindness is a payment to my ancestors whose screams i can still hear as their womanhood is defiled, i often get caught between hate and the truth neither make me feel any better, and both can't be denied ,
p.W.
Sep 13, 2021
Sep 13, 2021 at 10:28 PM UTC
i took a walk today in the garden and saw a wounded bird trying to fly, her wings were broken as she gasped for air, with every raise she lost a feather but i could tell she knew no better, her eyes searched the sky waiting to be found, chirping for what sounded like eternity
p.
w.
Sep 13, 2021
Sep 13, 2021 at 10:17 PM UTC
is it really greener on the other side or is it just hope? our lives in such peril that we hold on to an unconfirmed truth, an escape from the agony in which we call life, looking at the green pastures wondering what is on the other side, waterfalls and fresh air or is it just as polluted as there which suffocates us ,
Sep 13, 2021
Sep 13, 2021 at 10:02 PM UTC
black skin
white
cotton
dress
swinging back and forth
humming with the birds
blood running down her thighs
womanhood is calling
hips and curves
men cat calling
screams echo
kicking and screaming
silence as she cleans her
white
cotton
dress
p.w.
Nov 6, 2019
Nov 6, 2019 at 9:56 PM UTC
if every tear could show the pain
if every sleep less night could bring me back life oh how wonderful that would be for I seem to wander in the night searching for my mind wherever it is that it has gone. I walk a dark and lonely road full of doubts and reflections that bring me nothing but chaos within for the answers I search for only you hold but what truth do you hold when you entered by body with no invitation and stole my strength to feed your own weakness now you parade with arrogance that came from cracking my heart open with your lies..such a dark soul that had never intended to love but to milk me for what I was worth then toss me like you so easily did.
-pbw
Jun 13, 2017
Jun 13, 2017 at 1:40 AM UTC
I am different I am me.
I'm the best version of me I can possibly be from the imperfections to the mistakes. I learn and rise with the tides moving my world forward.
I sin and pray for redemption and ask the lord to protect me. I've been through hell and still await heaven but on this earth I smile away right through pain knowing the lord protects me everyday. I rise to fight the world that seems to always be against me and though I do not win every battle. I know in the end I will win the war.
-pbw
May 17, 2017
May 17, 2017 at 12:55 AM UTC