Remember when you were 6?
Spinning dizzy in the laughing sun?
I could play chasey till I doubled over,
Running, eating and laughing all at once!

Childhood gives way to "adult" realities.
Carefree running to silent, sober reflections.
That merry river.. now more often a motionless pond.

With a half-smile I wonder,
At the innocence which so freely played,
Thoughtless of harm.
Before such "adult" words like: fatal, divorce, disorder,
Ever applied to me.

What thoughts I have of you tonight, October,
for I’ve never walked alone the way I ought.
A double-decade drained. Divisive and over,
comprised of people collected,
and characters stolen.

This I know though, what it seems,
More than the changing of my lot,
For this world I can’t imagine,
Has borne far less than what I sought.

Now I stand to face the breeze,                        a chilling wind, a scattershot,
See these leaves in perfect juncture, with their wilting and their rot.
For it’s innocence I’ve lost and it’s innocence I’ll bear
When this age creates misgivings and I can’t help but feel distraught.

Cheeks of flesh turn to cold and replicate these ones
the chips and the dents that summon the reason,
I take this, accept it, a tall child in season,
Twenteen, more than once.

One day while on my front steps
under a Mars red sky
a child’s ball rolled into my foot
he retrieved it
thanked me
and scurried back to his family in the distance

all in one swift breath

In that moment I said “no worries.”

But when I reminisce
about the times when I was in your Velcro kicks
what I really wanted to say
is that I hope they raise you to become a Phoenix.

I hope they teach you to rise from any ash beneath you
I hope they teach you to respect and feel blessed,
to never be the prey of jackals in men’s clothing
to know when life is the boxer or the ring
to know when life is the boat or the typhoon tide you must find a way to swim through

I hope they teach you never to treat a woman like something that can be bought
I hope they teach you what LGBT means
I hope they teach you what BLM means
I hope they teach you what USA means and is
because at times those clash

I hope you never let the words of another mouth
enter your psyche and leave with your pride

I hope you never get dumped on your birthday
I hope you never learn what desperation feels like

and I sincerely hope that they teach you to care about what others face
and that growing older is the farthest thing from a race.

She was once a little girl with aspirations as wide as her brown eyes
But lethal words were planted into her psyche and poisoned her to infinity

That little girl now a young woman dreamed of meeting, loving, and marrying the man who would whisk her away
Yet he never made it to her doorstep and so she is now a grown woman

This now grown woman had to accept her solitary confinement; no wedding aisles to march down
And no sweet sounds of 'I love you Mommy' being sung in her ear

She envisioned a career that would bring forth abundant wealth
Yet poverty and lack have chained her

So this little girl who became a young woman and evolved into a grown up has finally accepted her given fate

No use in trying, no reason to hope, no point in fighting.
She looks to the day where she'll feel no despair through eternal slumber...

-DS

Two decades and two years have been passed
There is more to come

It is not always a rainbow
Sometimes it’s hard looking forward to tomorrow

I’m a failure as a daughter
Not to mention as well as a lover
Being kind never been my strength
Being gentle never been my true nature
I took the bullets but I couldn’t get the wolf trust

But, the pain I gain,
The tears I shed
The heart that shreded
I took the responsibility for it
All glued back now

Hardship never means to be easy
To live, never is
It creates you a shield to face the rest of the world
I may a useless and failure daughter
But I’m one hella though fighter

To the heart that keeps beating
To the soul that keeps sane
To the mind that keep in peace
22 years down, more to go

Adulthood daunting, calling, taunting.
Empty applications haunting.
Heartbeat thudding in my chest,
Through one more standardized test.

Fear ascending, never-ending.
Transcripts somehow aren't sending.
Catch me dangling off the edge,
Scrambling, I can't feel my legs.

Time interfering, disappearing,
Ground beneath my feet, commandeering.
Lungs burning, filling with water.
Panic prepping me for slaughter.

Indecision, like a prison.
One path splintered by division.
College here, or college there,
Growing up is a nightmare.

my son shall be a reflection of me with the mirror being his mother. he will have my eyes and his mothers heart, my brains but his mothers demeanor. we all know he’ll need it. the courage will come from us both because your mother is a warrior as am i. we fight. never let them see you down son, if you fall remember: gravity centers lowest to the ground, you shall gather yourself up and stand strong. and when the waves come crashing because they will, when they crash just know that you are a warrior. there is no mountain big enough in comparison to your potential, no storm loud enough to quite your spirit and no accolade too great to make you gloat. my son, you were made under the shield of love, so you shall forever be protected. never let anyone tell you otherwise. when you see a man down keep your arms outstretched, warriors can fight for the less fortunate too, but stand proudly in your body. and when they ask why you are who you are you simply respond: I am a reflection of my father in the mirror of my mother.