i remember us when we were young.
we two little girls,
not yet three,
sitting on my front steps, you
spitting sunflower seeds at my feet
and me ******* on the salt and
saving the insides for later.
we, inseparable at four,
singing and dancing at your bday party
(only two days before mine),
smothering cake all over our faces,
shoving icing covered fingers into our open mouths.

i remember that you were larger than life.
your head was always trying to
catch up with your body,
that expansive geography of
flesh.
even when we were kids, you
would pass your rolls of fat off for *******
(except for that summer, when
i came back and you moved away.
i was the one with the
biggest ******* on the block
then, and
instead of boys,
girls came running, wanting to see
what was hiding under my shirt.

that summer
i started my first love affair
with my new neighbor. the one i said had
the ghetto name? we would meet
in my livingroom- she on the couch and me on the floor
or
me on the couch and she on top of me and
she would lift up my shirt, struggle with my bra
and cradle my budding ******* like newborns.

...i never told you about that,
but i wanted to,
and i'm sure that's the summer when you came back to visit
and tried to get me to come out in your sly way.
you told me, "mali,
what's the point of boys? they're all trouble
anyways." and i mmed,
and you waited
and i changed the subject.

remember that time i bragged to you about smoking ****
for the first time? and little Rich
from up the block
tried to sell us bud, but we told him
we had our own? so to look cool, we stole
your grandma's ****, and i felt bad about it but
you told me it was okay because
she bought it
from my dad
anyway. i remember we rolled
a joint the size of your middle
finger and we smoked the whole thing.
i said i didn't feel nothing, but when your grandma asked us
about it, the only answer i could muster was,
"****?
what's that?"
i don't think she believed me, but she let me off the hook
and i wasn't allowed
to come over for a little while.

i remember being seven
on summer nights
and playing tag in the bushes that separated our houses or
catching lightning bugs in jars across the street
in front of the church because there
adults couldn't hear
our whispers about naughty things
like
cute teen boys and
what *** must feel like.

you seemed
to have so much freedom. you could
walk around the corner,
past the crumbling apartment where
crackheads would stumble out during midday-
all the way to the gas station
to get a huggie and a bag of chips, you said, but
who knew
what exciting adventures you might have had,
what interesting people you might have met?
my dad rarely let me go up and down the street.
i remember being so mad about that that. my big brother said
it was because me and him, we were
different.
now i realize he meant that we were
(supposed to be) better.
back then,
i wanted to be like you.
free to make my own choices. when your grandpa candy
asked me if i wanted to go on a ride on his motorcycle,
my little body shook with disappointment, because i knew
i had to say no. i sat on my front steps and
waited forever
until you came back, half hoping that
you had toppled off, or one of the other
dangerous things my mom warned me about
had come true.

instead,
you came back looking triumphant, your round cheeks
burning
with the excitement of your trip, your
half-permed hair
a messy halo
around your head.