split it anyway -
countenance of grief leaves back
a scar, forever.

Thank you for trying to help me cope.
Thank you for trying to offer me hope.

But this wound goes deeper than the soul.
It's the way the world is broken as a whole.

You'll never know the crush to a little girl's heart;
The shock and fear and disgust that starts

When she learns how men will see her,
How they'll fantasize on how to use her.

When she learns her power is minimal
And she's at the mercy of men who are criminals,

That being in this body makes her a target,
And her worth is decided in the beauty market.

Every part of her free game to criticize,
And valued only as she's seen by men's eyes.

So forgive me if I have trouble believing
That the world is better than I am perceiving.

But my life is the proof that what I'm saying is true.
Be thankful you can't understand all I've been through.

Love tore me open
to those sounds,
emitted from her throat.
Love cleaned wounds,
though left scars
as countless as stars.

I just wanted her to breathe.

I just wanted her to see
that such a weight needn't be
what she needs to
drag to another sunset.

If she could ever
raise her gentle head,
she would have seen
it was instead a sunrise.

I had a father once
one who committed one too many sins
so I don’t know why it surprised me so
when there was finally one I could not forgive

was this not his legacy all along?
irresponsibility and negligence and abuse
and never knowing right from wrong

I am a victim of my fathers demons
my mother even more so
his fists and his ire and his indifference
pummeled us and refused to let us grow

why was I so surprised
after a life time of deviancy and ire
that my father would be the same creature he is
bathing everyone else in his fire

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.

how
do i
reconcile
with the thought of you
when it means
my unbecoming?
nothing is left
of this girl
once
you are unclothed
from her skin.