I'll study the demise in your eyes and wonder if there was ever a time that you cried
For your loss.
I'll copy and trace the structure of your face and realize that
I am you.
Then I will show you a picture of my Dad and tell you but
This
Is my father.
Your genome may construct the structure of my bones but
I am his daughter.
And I am my mother
And I wonder, if you'll find it any if at all meaningful-
When I look you in the eyes and ask you
How someone so ugly
Can create something so beautiful.
When God created you,
He created the creation of me
And all I know about my identity is that I'm half Haitian
But that limb fell off from my family tree.
I pray
That God finds it in his heart to love you
Because God doesn't love the ugly.
Fortunately,
My skin may be tinted from the sins that make me your kin
But from the outside in
I look just like my mother.
Do you remember what she looks like?
My name is Rissa Ann Perkins, and I hope that you can't sleep tonight.
I hope that you frame a photo of my face in your brain
And if ever again should you dream,
I hope you wake up screaming my name.
Are you ashamed?
I'm not here to blame you
I came to show you
Just. How. Beautiful. I. Am.
And I just have to know what it feels like
To know that
I
Am you.
You gave me life.
I am you,
And I don't even love you.
So I have to know,
Do you love yourself?

A pretty smile she had
hair black and wavey
She liked to tell us stories
about a snake crawling
through a hole under the
bed.
She seem to always be
happy whenever we came
to town. She convinced me
talking about that snake I
found it very hard to lay
my head down.

I often wondered if it was
her own private joke just to
see what I would do. I loved
going to Mississippi to show
that I loved her too.
Miss Callie Mae was a joy
to me, each and every time
It was something very, very
specical about this lady
who was a grandmother
of mine.

I remember too much
Teach me how to forget
Mix the blood and dripping medicine
to a lighter shade of red
so the sheets stain less violently
so the spatters look like
a bouquet of pink lilacs

In the back seat of Dad’s red Grand Prix
I thought about death for the first time
and if God forgave kids who didn’t believe in him

Eternity was suddenly terrifying,
even in Heaven, an endless celebration
And in the dark, I would be alone, a streak of light
racing through empty space
with nowhere to go but further away

Mom was the first to see me falling to pieces
as I tried to explain the promise of Heaven was scary
like endless flames, and an eternity of nothing was just the same

As a child I ran from fear and hid in a well lit room
But here, as a crumpled heap on the ground, I couldn’t escape
Mom begged me not to be afraid
with a kiss and a therapist’s receipt
She promised peace and beauty in death
as I tore myself apart on the side of the road

I would liken you
To a night without stars
Were it not for your eyes.
I would liken you
To a sleep without dreams
Were it not for your songs.