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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

I do not want to feel
but I need it in order to heal
the days seems shorter and my nights longer I search for truth and peace within the world yet I never find it I'm met with lies and pain that causes me to grow colder a bed of tears is all I know and what keeps me comfort I sometimes drown in my own sorrow and scream for help while dying but no one ever seems to hear me...

A simple touch and my body trembles my toes tingle as my mind races and escapes my body and logic ceases , our body's intertwine in a dance of passion with sweat dripping on the floor in a harmonious  flow. Touch me as if I'm fragile and pretend to care if I break. For this one night value me I beg you.  As I let you in the gateway of my thighs you do not see you are entering my heart as well. My body once again begins to tremble at your touch yet my heart aches for the  passionate kisses I so desire but only kisses of lust linger on my lips. The gentle entrance to my kingdom I so seek is met by our body's moving in a dance of pain.  I continue to tremble at your touch while your burning desire fills the inside of me. Tears fall as I see the world in you and all I hold in your eyes is a gate way of pleasure between my thighs.

And from the tree I fell letting the wind take me where it pleased
so lifeless I'd float through the sky
where did all life go that use to flow so peacefully within my soul  
the beauty faded and the pain grew
the tears fell and it all ceased
every person I loved seemed to take a part of me as they left leaving with pieces that I don't know how to fit together , I would say I'm broken but that'd imply I could be fixed. People like me can't be Mended, our hearts have stopped far too many times and cried far too many songs of desperation, wore out due to a lack of love needed to keep pumping. People like me are not broken we are simply the dead disguised among the living
p.w.

tell me can you love my black
even when it's about to crack
falling through gates of hell
your black don't crack but mine did
after too many lies and too many wounds that never healed before others grew
your black don't crack but mine did
after too many burns by kind actions with ill intent and too many souls that came but did not stay
your black don't crack but mine did
after too many cries of help that went unanswered and too many words that went unsaid
-Mena W.

and some nights I feel like ice that cools in the mid winter or crisp fall leaves that have just fallen, life less and dead at the end of their journey once so beautiful and radiant a sight to see some thought of thee then life came and the colors changed the greens turned into hot reds  then just as fast as it arrived the color left the leaves wrinkled and the wind came to collect its debt ripping its heart the leaf hit the ground slowly doing its last glide in the air as it hit the ground to no longer live again

be so high be so low
but many do not know
for the burden that I bear
I simply can not show
through tears and the pain
I hold smile and proudly reign
this throne that I sit on under a titled crown will soon come to an end with the devil at my door and my morals poor I must pay the debt of sins that my heart lead too for the spirit was before the flesh therefore forgiveness from the lord seems a bit far fetched for I sin then I cry and beg the lord hear my cry then the devil speaks to me and I fall being so weak

Dear America,
How are you ?
I must ask what do you see as beauty . For I am a young black women who just want to be beautiful in your eyes and so I ask what must I become to be such in yours. Must I buy the hair of foreigners and wear it as my own since I know my natural hair and rough texture to distasteful for your eyes. I have become too ashamed of my appearance therefore please tell me what I must do to be beautiful. I know that my thick thighs and curves are not acceptable. I eat less and run more but I can't seem to quite reach the image displayed in the magazines. My buttocks are quite small and I do not have the means to pay for implantations but I want to be beautiful so I must find a way, right? Oh America my biggest blemish is my dark skin. I search for bleaching products since lighter skin women are superior and I must be part of the hierarchy of beauty. My skin contains this substance called melanin that I just can't seem to get rid of but of course I won't disappoint you I will find a way to become the right complexion.  America I truly do want to be beautiful in your eyes and will do what is necessary. I want men to find me appealing, I want my fellow women to envy my beauty, and most of all I want to be what you view beautiful. ..I have foreign hair now no more  of that rough natural hair, my skin is much lighter and I am a size zero now with a large buttocks. I do not recognize myself in the mirror but why does that matter because you think I'm beautiful now, right America?

some nights I cry
others I shake
more often then so I yearn
I yearn to feel to for I only exist these days wandering through life admiring strange faces and emotions I once felt myself but I crossed paths with the devil who took any life I had left within me now he watches amused at the life he's subjected my soul too a life of forced emotion and smiles a life of laughter drowned out by reality

I look at you and I see the world
I see pain that changed you
Emotions that drowned you
The faces that came and went
The promises that were broken
Disappointment that became the norm,
The nights that broke you and the people who left you empty inside
But I also see hope for humanity
Feel the love within your heart
Hear the warmth in your voice
The world is dark but I see the light in you
keep shining even when it gets dimmed

Pain never goes away.
We just become a little more numb
Tears only await to return.
They await for us to be broken again
Then to get up just to be broken again.

I am not impressed by much yet fascinated quite often. I care for a lot but I also hardly ever care for much. I am not heart less, I feel everything deeply but I do not feel as much as I should. Sometimes I live and other days I exist. Some nights I want to party and others my bed is enough for me. Some days I feel like Prada and other days I don’t care for brands at all. Some nights I yearn for human affection but still I do not invest my time in anyone because most people simply just have potential that never amounts and leaves me disappointed.I am genuinely always happy yet my heart aches often. I am complex yet the simplest human being you’ll ever come across.

Contemplate life and it's painful experiences how every tear , heart break, disappointment has created the person you've become. Optimistic with pessimistic tendencies. People will leave you empty then ask for more. Kindness taken for granted with no sub conscious present of how ungrateful they've become to your kindness