I want them to look beyond my face and my body
I want them to realize that my best is me at 3:37 am, with a notebook in one hand, a pen in the other, and Charles Mingus playing in the background
I want them to see me
I want them to realize that I am naturally soft spoken but my voice is so powerful sometimes that MLK, Maya Angelou, Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Malcolm X themselves take turns looking down from heaven in amazement at the fire my belly has produced
I want them to feel me but not in a ****** way because I get tired of people trying to get inside me and not learn the inside of me
I want them to love me
I want them to love me in a way not even myself can love me because self-love is cool and all but admiration is for my ego and as I look around this late at night I realize one tiny confirmation from ten thousand people means so much more than ten thousand tiny confirmations from myself
Why is that?
I want them to understand me
I want them to be able to look at something I create and it touches their soul they way the person beside them cannot
I want them to rejoice in the sweet hallelujahs of connection but I don't want praises for a God-given talent
I want them to be inspired
I want to move them in a way their teachers never could and the way their parents should
I want to teach them
I want to be able to say a line the aligns with the situation that's dwelling in their hearts as they look with glistening eyes waiting for the solution I cannot fully give away to them yet
They must hang on to my every word, following my movements with the sway of their bodies until I tell them the golden word that will spark that change for them
I want them to listen
God, I hope they listen
Because being a black girl in the ghetto with depression no one would listen to cries I often let out
No one would pay attention to the warning signs I would give them
I was told to get over it and it would pass but years have passed and it's still here
I want them to pay attention
To the tone of my voice that indicates my feelings
To the way my eyes dim when darkness is approaching
I need them to be observant for when they come across another person as sad as me they know that depression isn't just a state of mind
It isn't just a trend or something you say for attention
I want them to be aware
I want them to feel
In a generation that takes pride in feeling nothing and destroying everything they touch I want them to hold emotion strong enough to be someone's healing component
I want them to love
Love as if it is the only thing that can keep them from dying
I want them to believe in something bigger than anything they can ever imagine, touch, or feel
I want them to find themselves
I want them to find worth in themselves and not one-night stands, substances, or self-harm
I don't want them to be afraid anymore
I want them to know I'm here
I want them to to be expressive and free
I want them to know I love them
But most of all, I need them to be okay so that I can have hope for myself

hey, i love you
but i'm afraid you don't feel the same
so i wrote this little note for you
hoping that you'd actually cherish my heart one day

I have watched love love others and leave me hoping and praying for a way out of darkness when I'm broken
Don't tell me about love

I remember when you watched your son die. I wish I could have told you the world lost him too that day but I couldn't find the words between my heart shattering and losing my will to live. The light in your eyes disappeared after that. You made several failed bargains with God. Your 70th birthday was a prelude to his funeral. Your wife often set an extra place at the table for him on Sundays and this always broke your heart. I would watch as you took your plate in your safe haven to watch a game. This is the same place you and him spent 35 years bonding. We would watch the door around five sometimes hoping he would walk in the door with his work clothes slowly coming off as usual. Usually, someone made you coffee after the realization that his car had been parked in the same spot for months. He wasn't coming back and you took this the hardest. You lost yourself in sadness and found yourself in rage. I often watched you under the door as you would cut up quotes of scriptures at 3 am humming a tune I now hum out of habit. You would often scream profanity in church parking lots as if it was payback for God taking your son from you. Close family reminded you of the reunions your son was alive to see and even closer family bothered you. You would call me him sometimes and I would answer in the same voice I later answered in when you could not remember me. You let losing 1/4th of the home you created destroy you. I watched you slowly degenerate for six years at this time, swallowing back the words I wanted to tell you with the words everyone wanted me to tell you. You got really sick in 2013. Your final stages were emotional. It was 2014. I lost a part of myself searching for things you couldn't remember. You wouldn't talk to me as much at first because you saw the hurt in my eyes. You would force yourself to say a name. The correct name. My name. I couldn't look you directly in the eyes anymore. You lost hope in yourself. Your life. Everyone around you did as well but me. I cried because I wanted you to live and you didn't. You would scream. You would cry. You would laugh. You would get lost. You would fall. Someone would pick you up. You would not eat. You would watch TV in amazement as if it had just been invented. Someone would visit. Someone would ask about you in our daily trips to town. You would complain that your clothes are expanding but you were just losing weight. You would get angry. You would calm down. We would talk about something and I would smile and your eyes would light up as if you knew me again. It was as if you saw me as that little girl you taught to be a loud Braves fan. That girl you would take into town just because. This was a weekly repeat of our last summer together. When I left you were eating and you had started to turn back into the old you. Our phone calls were short and scattered after that. I disappeared in November and came back in January. Grandma told me you wouldn't talk and I visited you. You talked. Your smile was weak and your eyes weren't blue anymore. You didn't eat. You looked as if you were tired and I wanted you to sleep. When I left that day, I smiled and told you I loved you and that you should get some rest. You told me "okay sweetie I love you too" and I hugged you. We didn't speak after that. You left in February.

I watched the sun jealous of how its light kissed your skin
I would think of you in my deepest depression
I would watch in glee as you would form the most breathtaking smile on earth
You changed the way I saw art
The way I saw the world
You moved as graceful as Russian acrobats, feet light like ballerinas pirouetting into dawn
I sculpted my idea of perfection into you and imagined it going to bed with me at night
I took the burden of your emotions, your fears, your hopes, your dreams, your secrets, and guarded them in my heart as light weight
I have drawn you so much on school papers that my professors count you as bonus points
I promised myself I would not write about you but I can't stop my pen from stroking the paper with your name
Although you have strayed from our bond I'm terribly reminiscent of you
I used to notice how you would gravitate towards me whenever we were in the same room
I have watched in silence you kiss others with the same disappointment you feel for your father
I imagine me where they are
Eyes closed, heart open
Anticipating your kiss and somewhat hoping you're doing the same
I imagine the light in your eyes in the aftermath
I imagine the light that once lit up my entire universe
How can someone get over a person like you?
I often cry at night, praying you would come back to me
I sit in silence at our special places touching everything we touched together
Feeling the cool breeze caress my skin the way you once had
I feel the emptiness twice as much those days