Sister
By no relation except
The melanin in our skin
The plumpness of our lips
The cocoa of our eyes
The span of our hips


Sister
Except she didn't recognize me
So when I scolded her she didn't see the love in it
She was defensive
Mistook me for the enemy
Although I was trying to be her shield

It took a while
To separate her sister
From "*****"
A few interventions
For her eyes to open
For her mouth to pause from
words of venom to
listen to me explain
I am her sister by no relation.

It's very possible that situations can embody a person. Drown them in their glory. It is just as possible I am jealous, jealous that you are so certain and continue to play a role as someone I do not know. It is very possible a slight crush has risen just because you're always around. It is possible the timing is just odd because I just so happen to be available. It is possible you know I am vulnerable and will take advantage of the moments I pay you mind because you feel my eyes glued waiting. So it is possible you pick and choose what you say, who you say it to, and when you do so. It is possible this has become the new you.

Ironic enough
You embody the man I despise when he is loved
That power you hold
I'm aware
You think I'm already yours
Just waiting for you to come claim your prize
now my eyes fill with realization
I refuse to give you more power
So I'll lower my brown pools when I once was warmed with the moment the stares would meet
I'll leave the room to show I don't yearn for your prescence
I will not let you be loved

I wonder if it's a coincidence that every time I look at him, he's looking back at me. A slight awkwardness, but we never address it. So when he held my hand today I wondered if he could read my mind all those times. I wondered if he watches me walk away just as I watch him ,waiting til his eyes meet mine. He matches my tone that screams "pay attention to me" with a tone that affirms he's been watching me the whole time. That's how his eyes always meet mine.

I am a **** good woman.

I may not be perfect, but I am. Does that confuse you? I love the way my smile shines when I see my reflection, chip and all. I enjoy feeling my hair blow with wind, or wet upon my back. I can stand **** for hours, gazing at every curve, or lack there of, that has graced my silhouette with its presence over the past 19 years and 7 months. Content.

I am not curvaceous nor too thin. I stand before myself. Just a body that did not ask for it's formation when it was sent from heaven, still holding hips that will bear children, breast that will feed villages, hands to uplift the child.
I am a **** good woman.
I come from a womb of the strongest woman I know. I bleed blood from her veins, bared skin that she's given me. I am molded from great women. Their features arrange themselves on my face, their vocabulary runs rapid across my tongue, memories madly through my mind.
I am a **** good woman
I have loved fiercely with compassion. It is without vanity I have compromised myself to love.
I am a **** good woman.*
How dare you think I am not enough?
I came from your rib! I am a part of you.
I have walked miles for mankind, cried for those before us, hurt from wounds you thought were long healed.
Still, I rise.
Impatient to be loved by a man worthy of my greatness.
A man worthy of the long walks of lonesome, sight seeing of chauvinists and fools gold we mistook as lovers.
However
With or without man I am woman.
A **** good one at that.

It is not without great vanity that a man loves a woman. She sits hours upon days, sunsets upon moons, waiting to be missed. He is inconsistent with his efforts, and as her love swells, he retreats back to the mannerisms that exemplify why women want what they can never have. He looks in the mirror feeling so lucky to live in his skin, so lucky to be so loved, while she looks in the mirror wondering what it is about her that does not intrigue him enough to fully commit to a heart as fully committed as her own. He knows his power, he wears it well.
It is with great vanity a man is loved.

It's like a fantasy world.
All these amazing people in one place
Connected because they have 1 thing in common
They are diversely brilliant
I'm in this place
And as I sit in a chair marveled by everyone speaking of their goals ambitions and interests
I can't help but be proud that I equally am as diversely brilliant.
He knew my name before I said it.
She did too.
Another interrupted me as I introduced myself to brag about my accomplishments.
We are young and gifted. The rare breed that is not so rare when we are in this place.

I wore you on my wrist today.
Blew the dust off the black velvet.
Twisted the heart back into place.

I don't have a metaphoric way of expressing how I feel tonight. So I won't try.

I won't try to describe a love I'll never know, nor maximize the mere encounters I mistaked it as.

It's quite ridiculous now that I think about it. All these writings about these people that don't consider themselves lucky to have had me. I won't try to prove to them that I'm worth the appreciation. I'll just sit here thinking of Augustus Waters.

*I love her. I am so lucky to love her.

Turn on the television at your own risk.
We're dying.
People like us are dying and we are the killers.
Three shootings before 10pm.
18 year old woman found dead on the sidewalk
Six shootings took place in Milwaukee last night
The stories just start to blend together.
And after a while they all begin to end the same:
*No one is in custody at this time, there are no suspects

I rather die alone by choice than to feel alone in another's presence.
At least I will always be mine.
I am mine no matter the day, hour, month, or phase.
Any time, any place
I don't care who's around

I am lovely and lonely
and that is better than that nausea you feel when what you thought was yours turned out to be
temporary
Your heart sinks to your gut
I don't want another person to be the reason I feel unwanted
I want my loneliness to be a choice
a temporary emotion
because I am never alone
As long as I am mine
*always

I wonder how he feels when the sun warms his eyelids at daybreak.
What does he say to talk his feet into giving the floor another day to be graced by his presence?

I want to know his conversations with the Lord, eavesdropping, just to catch a snippet of whatever pulls him through adversities.

What does his heart feel like? I imagine it big and damaged, like an antique vase that couldn't quite be thrown away because it holds so much sentimental value, but whose cracks can never be repaired. I want to feel those cracks.

I wonder what he daydreams of. What floats into his mind when everything is still? What does he over think about when he thinks no one is watching?

As he retires into a bed that is not his own, how does he reflect on his day? Remaining ready to face tomorrow as if fearless. I feel his fear, but never see it. Rarely he'll let me hear it in his voice.

So many questions that I wonder. I silence them. I may not be able to love him, but I will always respect his story. I will love his strength.

When Grampa and I first started going together he took me to the state fair and we got on the Ferris wheel. Ya know Gramma is scared of heights. Well we went on the Ferris wheel, and stopped at the very top. Then grampa just started a'rockin the seat. I was so mad at him, and promised I'd never go on another ride with him. And I didn't until the grand babies came along.

What are our lives when we leave this place?
Painting pictures to customers
Selling an idea that we have it all together
I wonder what are our lives when we leave this place?
Because we're always here and
When we're not, we complain
It can't be for the money at this point
We revolve around this place
I used to dread heading there but
Now I always say
"I have nothing else better to do"
At least for so many hours I'm wanted somewhere

Then I return home
Feet hurting
If only Blasian was here to rub them
Just wanting to lay
We could play 2K, I almost beat him ya know
Falling asleep in someone's arms besides my own
Wish you could stay longer

Then the eery silence reminds me
I haven't heard from him in 2 days
Haven't heard from my back up in 4
I'm double lonely
Could you work a 2-close instead of 12-5
Certainly.
I'm not wanted any place but here.

I hear his breath next to my ear.
I feel his heart beating against my own.
There is nothing better than this moment simply because I realize he's my best friend.
If I am alone, it is by choice because
Each night I find him at my door begging entry
Just to be next to me until the sun rises again
His paws rest on my neck
As my arm is stretched across his small frame
He uses my face as his pillow
Wrapped in each other
we sleep peacefully
And I wonder if I'll ever be as comfortable with a human as I am with my bad *** dog

*Jojo

It's like you threw a curve in me
Never understood how love songs could make me blush as if they were written for me personally
Thank you for making me feel like I'm the prettiest girl in the world
Until I met you
Smirking at my screen
No matter what I have on he thinks I'm beautiful
Reminding me of all the times you just ignored my glasses, bonnet, cornrows, and even how you met me with swollen eyelids and no voice
Make me scream I'm all yours
Holding back because I don't know how to feel
Alone in a room, but all these notes are warming me like
the last snowflake on the first day of spring

Sounds of Love

And just like that she's my mama again.
Calm as cool cat inching through an alley.
Asking about me with her motherly concerns.
Reminding me her love is constant even if her mood may not be.
She ensures that she never really has to worry about me because I'm just like her in a way. Strong and self sufficient.
She had to love us all differently and for some of us her love couldn't be enough.
She revives me as she gushes about how maybe I was the only one.
This woman is not cold, she is as vibrant as a July night with a clear sky.
Her words glide rather than fly like a dart aiming to ****.
Her eyes do not squint with mutiny but widen with interest
Do you miss your dorm?
She must've been reading my mind
She knows it gets hard around here
Her eyes tell me that she needs me around just to bring her back to being my mama
Not Mani's or Cartel's because it makes her cold
She needs to be warm once in a while
For me
Pass me the jelly
Can you take me to work on Tuesday?
Refill the tissue
Did you feed the dogs?
She depends on me
Thanks for cleaning the kitchen
Thanks for doing the laundry
I always try to ease her workload
Thanks for putting my clothes in my room
Thanks for making the lasagna
…Sourdough melt basket with mayo and ketchup. Please don't forget the mayo and ketchup.  Oh and chicken tenders with barbecue sauce
Lex

Yes Mama. I won't forget, I never do.

"My mother's a *****. I don't say that out of disrespect, but yeah she can be a real *****. Colder than a homeless man that goes shirtless during a Wisconsin winter simply because he had given the shirt off his back to his   daughter before he lost her. She's not cold to the core though. See, it's just that my mother has been through so much. I like to think of her not as a cold winter, but a late spring. Just as the tulips try to grow through the snow without rain, my mother is just trying to find her happiness but she's just deterred by pain."

Tomorrow marks June 2nd.

For me it is the day I find out if I have been accepted into the School of Journalism.

For her, it is the day she finds out the *** of her child.

I remember freshman year we became friends. She was skinnier than me, and shyer too. Always lookin' mean, but I saw her smile and she let me see her smile all the time.

Now the hidden sweet girl will be someone's mother soon.
I hope she let's her child see her smile too.

Akin to second hand smoke
rage passes on
she isn't cognizant of the idea that when she yells
her words cut through me too

I become both their emotions
angry like my mother
saddened like my sister
my emotions contradict themselves
stuck in a middle counting down until I can escape again
Was it this bad a year ago?
Perhaps my absence causes the rage to reach all time heights because
Without me it's even emptier
neither have someone to run to, a confidante
Who's there to save the hero?
I feel my headache as it accompanies my cramps
Tears said he'd be here in twenty
I'm sick of both of them at this point

I ran in the rain and
as I reached the car
I wondered
*Why hadn't I ran until my feet gave out?

I'm a servant to the pages
Intruding on infinite realities to distract me from my own
She's always yelling
For a day I can be someone else
Keeping my nose tucked
Serving as a fly on the wall as all hell breaks loose
It's never over
No book between my fingertips shall prosper as long as I'm stuck in this
madness
Saddened as the thickness that once was the unknown dies out until I reach the highly unanticipated author's note
Not five minutes passed before the yelling revs up again
Like a bad engine trying to restore it's life
I want to hit the road too

Together we feel like the color yellow
Just as bright as can be
Happy to just be together doing nothing
Rather than being bored doing nothing
Separately

Thoughts stampeding through my mind as my eyes try to focus on pages of words.
Images of myself clashing with those of Jean causing me to neglect the story she's trying to break down to me.
It's just hard to hear her over my screams.
Visualizing the car scene that took place just an hour ago
Envisioning myself as the demon
Wondering if I was overreacting...

Replaying all the scenes where my anger fuse has dwindled too fast
My mouth pained with a quick tongue
Curious if a drink would've calmed my nerves

I just hope people don't replay these moments like I do...

"The black woman is the most unloved creature to walk the earth."

Our men do not value us.
They test our willpower, breaking us repeatedly
Claiming our self worth as weakness when the burden of his love becomes too strenuous

We do not know what it is like to be loved because pain neglect and disrespect come at a more rapid pace
The torture is endured in hopes of an evolving love
Some day...

I am ignored
My anger no matter the volume
Is never loud of enough for a man

"To ask him now, it ain't fair. So yeah, he lost one."

Sometimes you get so exhausted repeating yourself
Just to hear him say
"I'm sorry"
As if it's everything you want to hear
So you just sigh and ask

Is it even worth it?

I come from pain, but I've worn it with grace for almost twenty years.

I was born to serve my mother
I'm her last hope when she loses faith in all things
I love her more than anything in this world
But the world has made her so cold
It's hard loving someone that sees so much disappointment and
She blames herself, wondering why she's been sentenced to double life
Stress

I want to make her so happy
I want to take on all her burdens
I know my love can't heal all her pain
It can't fill the cracks that the last 7 years have brought along

I'm the only sane child I think
I've heard the same scoldings so many times
I've had my act together since the fifth grade.

She led us down the right path.
She just wasn't there to choose the forks
Thats where some were led astray

I wonder why me?
Why did I make all the right friends?
Why did I do all the right things?
How can being so right feel so wrong?

I feel this imbedded desire to live up to being the chosen one.

I always see these days coming.
Slowly rumbling…
It's like walking on eggshells
Never knowing what exactly is gonna be the catalyst
So I wait.

I was painting my names (black ironically)
When my mom came back from getting the car washed
Another list of things that have went wrong with the car since
the new owner came into ownership
Rear damage, filthy, missing hub cap

It set her off

Then it turned into an explosion when my sister walked in
"14 year old boy"
"crackhead"
"mentally insane"

It hurts just because I've said all these things just last night
My mom continued her rant, she used to stop to spare my feelings
But this time she saw my head nod in agreement
I would've snapped along too
We were exhausted
Like just talking at a wall that didn't see the strain she was putting on this household
It used to be Cartel, then he left for 12 years and thats when things started to take the turn
Maybe she just felt like there was room for a new family **** up
But little did she know she was the last one left
everyone else had grown up.

Just be there

But he always is out trying to save the **** world
Maybe he forgets I need help sometimes too
Superman has these ******* lapses in judgment that make him think sometimes even though we're in separate states I'm perfectly fine not hearing from him. He doesn't seem to understand that's all I have. We got closest through these **** mobile phones always rushing to respond, FaceTime, call, and listen. Now it's like pulling teeth just trying to have a conversation worth having. I've forgotten what his voice sounds like, forgotten his ****** expressions. Constantly on edge because now when I see his name pops up I'm so agitated that he still hasn't noticed the problem. Just give me my superman.

Every time I come home I feel so much older
Maybe Milwaukee ages us
Makes us anxious stressed
Worries us

Milwaukee shows me my lonely because I'm always left
Home alone with just the dogs and
Even when everyone (the three of us) are all here
We stay away from each other
Silence
When its broken with a strangers laughter its odd
As if they're too loud
"I haven't seen your mom in forever"
"It's so quiet"
"Where is everyone?"

She's either upstairs or gone
Yeah just me and the pups really
They leave, never telling me where they're going

It's funny when we're young our families are so quick to establish good memories of family love and tradition within us, building a positive foundation
But these days each holiday becomes questionable
It's like the idea of family is dwindling
I panic when I think of who will be at my Thanksgiving dinner one day...

I only thought about him once last night
I was too busy dancing
Trying not to sweat
But it was inevitable
The tequila wine Hennessy and Amsterdam just made me forget him
I was too busy not being slept on
It was hard to remember him as I was just stumbling trying to remember where I left my phone last
Just to check it and notice he had once again went ghost
So he'll never know that I let someone grab my *** or my breast...
He's forgotten that I'm a smooth talker
So I smooth talked 3 guys into rubbing my charcoal stained feet
And I giggled and thought **** I hope they wash their hands after
He's so sure I'm somewhere staying put
But I really just wanted to **** someone other than him for the first time in two months
And I tried, but I fell asleep
That's just God telling me not to be spiteful

Once a good girl goes bad, she's gone forever

It's hard not knowing where you stand
Cutting corners
Gluing ends
You never really had to deal with the fear of not having enough
Until you were the first to want more
They never had a child that knew she deserved and was capable of more
There was always enough
Until dreams got bigger than daddy's apartment
Bigger than the tan house on the corner
Bigger than the two puppies mama brought home so each daughter had a cuddle buddy
That's when things started slowing down
When mama started saying no
When daddy's tone started to sound less like baby girl can have whatever she wants to
Calls about taxes fafsas and loans
It's when the excitement about a full scholarship died down and the beginning of why didn't you do more scholarships, why didn't you win..
It's when you start feeling a guilt for wanting to invest in things you've never seen and mama says your money could go to something else and you start getting fearful that she may start enforcing where your own hard earned money goes.
It's when you know it's time to move on.

Always disappearing
"Don't go ghost on me "

Sometimes mid-day just to not return until morning acting as if the 15 hours were no big deal and need not be explained
I hate when he does that ****
Sleeping on me
As in not realizing who he's disappearing from

Not knowing in 15 hours I've put on my low cut blouse and my thigh hugging jeans, curled my hair, made my eyes pop with eyeshadow and lips pout with gloss.
Just to show I've still got it
He doesn't know I took shots of brown now I can't stop dancing
And the guy before him won't stop watching
Multiple guys with their "excuse me" as they accidentally grab my *** as they walk past"imma let my hands do the talkin"
Or the one that tried to give me a lap dance...

He doesn't know my girl and I were the finest in the room "all the 5s need to listen when a 10 is talkin"
And we were constantly reminded
That the guy before him tried touching every part of me "I miss feeling on ya"
Even wanted me to leave with him

So I stopped checking my phone
"Don't go ghost on me , imma go thrilla on ya"

The male ego is sexist and stingy.

"You let someone else have what's mine?"
I am mine.

"You were supposed to hold me down!"
I prefer to breathe, rather than hold twice my weight underwater, struggling to breathe because you're holding me both up and down. Wasting time and adding unnecessary weight with baggage.

"I've watched you grow up."
One of us had to. That does not mean you are entitled to my newfound confidence, independence, or intelligence.

The male ego forgets that women have hearts too.

He intrigues me enough that I answer steadily and instantly, even though he'll take another eternity to give me another sentence. Even though I know Blasian wouldn't approve, that he's done so much more in 2 months than he's done in years.

But his baby face always softens me. Knowing when I've reached my wits end, he brings in new tactics to bring me back in. Always results in me laughing hysterically like a silly freshman, but deep inside I want to be the strong woman I aspire to be.
He told his aunt I was real, that I always kept it 100.

Just when I thought I was going unnoticed, I was the girl he always bragged to his family about. Showing how beautiful Yanni's niece, Fe's baby, Mani's little sister has become. Connected. You'd think it would work out. Unfortunately, like most chauvinists, it is difficult to realize a good woman until someone else realizes it too.

Not just love. More than these moments that get us off or make us feel elated, wanted, undeserving. Separate but equal just the same with distance. An ability to crave solitude, a power to decide when you don't have to be alone. A constant light when they tell you that your solitude is gloomy, darkening, all consuming of potential happiness.

I don't really know what love is because in all honesty it doesn't take a whole bunch before I'm inspired to take my desires to the paper. That's just documentation. Memories so when the real thing comes along, I'll know exactly why the others never worked out. Poems that just show how anti-alone a young woman can be.

I don't want my poetry to thrive based on how someone else can make me feel. A passion of mine that has to be constant, more inspirations, however I'm feeling. I don't want to be known as the girl that always wrote about being in love because I don't know if I ever really was...

When those soons turn into forevers and the days seem to drag along because you know someone is missing. You're just waiting for him to come home.

So we left his room the same your honor because we didn't know how long he'd rip the streets because he always came home. He loved us. He laughed at us, we laughed with him. He was my mom's first born, and they had a special bond you see. A bond that showed me that my mother can love through anything.

Believe it or not it was the first time I saw her sad. You just felt her mood dampen when she came to my room and said they gave your brother 12 years today, and closed the door without offering another detail. And I cried in my lonesome. We all did because he had already been gone 6 months and now I was being told the next time he'd be free I'd have a college degree, a whole new life, I'd know things that I didn't know because he was gone when I was only thirteen.

Your honor I don't know why he did it. He was the first born. The first grand baby, the first favorite. I admit I was jealous at his everyone always had a soft spot for him, but then he'd ask me to do something and I'd do it because I loved him. He was my brother, and not a day went by that he didn't remind me how annoying it can be to be the youngest. But your honor we gave him all we could collectively. I don't know why it wasn't enough. You sentenced our family to 12 years, but you let murderers run free. You took my brother. He never saw me off to prom, never met my first boyfriend, never saw me graduate. He never told me how to be a woman because I was only 13 when you took him from me.

"An impossible dream. Others dream that they are millionaires. I dreamt that a woman loved me."

It was the way he kissed every part of me, felt every part of me almost every minute. The moments he didn't think I was paying attention, but he was never slipping. Kissing my hair as I slept as if we'd known each other for years. Holding me as if it'd break more than hearts to let go. Snoring on my chest, suddenly waking up to my face and never returning to his slumber without a kiss.

It was the way I woke up to his kisses and him stroking my hair.

I miss the way he feels.
Under me.
On me.
Beside me.

Under me watching my every move.
Guiding my waist.
Lips being smushed as I warn him
To monitor his moans
Although I enjoy hearing him whisper
Yes, yes, yes

On me pressing his weight so I can't move
His face so serious until I pull him so close I can't see him anymore
Thrusting his body so that each stroke feels like someone is bulldozing my body
Wondering how no one can hear us because our bodies are screaming so loud and breaths becoming so rhythmic
it's almost disrespectful

Beside me letting me fall asleep on his chest while he plays video games as he waits to wake me back up
Kissing me all the while so I have the sweetest dreams
forehead, kiss
hair, kiss
hand, kiss
cheek, kiss
Then I'm up

I miss the way he feels under on beside
Me.
I just want you near.

How do I stop these headaches...
The pounding in the center as if my brain is being shaken out of place.
The irritation that makes me pray to keep my blood pressure down because hypertension runs in my genetics.

Constantly reacting, each error becomes a catalyst to a headache that makes me clench my teeth, claw my seat, wrinkle my brows. Instantaneously this frustration reoccurs.

My mother and I alternate the burden. These headaches run through both our veins. Genetically annoyed. Venting to each other of how we don't think our bodies can handle anymore. Our bodies dying as our frustration lives happily and stress free. Just piling her burdens on us. Taking advantage of our need to get things done, advantage of our go getter mentalities.

Aspirin after aspirin. They disappear so fast these days.

Sitting on a bus wondering where I'm headed, not location wise, but where with this fellow I came all this way for. Slowly doubting if this could really be it. If it was just another instance of me not wanting to be alone.

Then the crowd parted ways like Moses parted the sea and there he was.

All for me.

A playlist of all the songs that remind me of you.
In constant rotation as the days pass.
They put us into context.
Music to your ears whenever I seem too far
Whenever you need a reminder

Press play

In times of great boredom or great stress
I take a break from my surroundings and find you
My happy place
Always counting down how many more days (27) have to pass
Before I can cuddle with you and PJ.
Counting how many days have passed since I was able to hold you last (23).
Ten days short of two months separating us
although we're only separated by 78.8 miles.
So I daydream
Always recreating what our reunion will be like
They can't take me from my happy place
It's what's getting me through
Helping me wait for you.

So many poems you've inspired.
The best part of me.
Words taken for granted
Although I loved and wrote them willingly.
I always knew.

At 8:30 this morning I was still hopeful. I still had a chance. It was possible. It was mine.

An hour later "We regret to inform you..."

An hour later it was over. the 4 months of waiting for absolutely nothing was over. "Excellent pool of candidates..."

I wondered if that made me less excellent. "highly competitive and qualified..."

Was I not qualified? I replayed my application over and over in my head and it sounded like it was mine.

"Oh, it was national" says my father.

Maybe I'm only qualified when it comes to Wisconsin, because the same thing happened to me at Regionals... Somewhere in America there is someone better equipped for your dream.

"We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors"
    Well, what if I have no luck left? What if I'm not excellent enough?

What if I'm not qualified enough?
What if I'm not deserving enough?

Then I look over my Journalism application. 120 spots.
120 qualified people out of a pool of who knows how many.
My morning made me feel unqualified as if there was a slim chance I could possibly obtain anything I truly wanted.

Then there's Beyonce and Jay-Z tickets everyone is raving about, but I'm in a stand still because I have **** I need to do. I have dreams that money actually can buy. So while everyone is raving about concert tickets,
I'm at a standstill wondering how in the hell will I afford to make my dreams come true when Beyonce could've made them happen 100 times over and then some...

Feeling unlucky, unwealthy, and under qualified

Then a friend tells me "cast your anxiety upon the lord"

Deep breath in.

Exhale. Something greater is coming my way.

And each one reminds me of you.
I think you had me at hello.