Baby Sister

Life is the value of love after sunrise, 

The crooked smile in liars and the 

Stutters in my heart beat. 

 Life for me was wrapped up in you. 

With all of my body I knew you were

My only way to happy but, God

Knew greater than me. 

I loved you without a second thought.

Every heart beat I heard, I knew you 

Were mine but, God wasn't ready 

For me to be yours. I loved you before 

Noon every Sunday, when I should have been resting.

I cried for you every second you

Were gone and shielded my eyes 

From your ashes cause that's as

Close as I got to seeing you. 

I wonder what your eyes looked like. 

Is Your smile like daddy's or are you as 

Beautiful as mommy? Baby sister, 

I never spoke of you cause I was 

Afraid of missing you. 

I didn't even know there was a possibility 

Of missing someone I've never met,

I've missed your soft silhouette and curly 

Hair. 

I missed out on your entire hand

wrapped around my finger tips.

You were my world. My something 

I could have smiled at on lonely 

Nights. My baby doll and my 

beauty Queen. You are still my

Sister so, I pray for your soul

More than my own.

The ripples in my heart beat when ever

Momma speaks of you lets me know 

She misses you. 

Love after sunset is reserved for the

 ones  like you. The ones who never

Took a step but, constructed a ballet

In my spirit that spelled out your name 

Across my heart

Whenever I blink in the mirror, I see you.

Whenever I smell my palms, I breath you.

You are apart of me infinitely. 

You may not be bigger than an infant 

But sweetie, you are always my sister.

   Baby sister, I only dreamed of holding 

You. Holding you like I held God on

Sundays. 

Holding you like I held hot frying pans of

Anger. I hold you like shackles on a 

Prisoner, I am prisoner to your love

And this sentence never runs

Out. 

I may run out of breath when speaking 

Of you but, I'll never run out of love

When loving you. 

Loving you in pieces is better than loving 

You not at all, pieces of me still hang onto 

You even when there's no you to hang

On to. 

I painted your room yellow and put dolphins on your wall. I know that 

Combination isn't ordinary but, true love

And sisterhood now in days isn't 

Something that lasts forever, they 

End faster than your life could start. 

I guess our relationship will never be

Ordinary and, I'm okay with that. 

As long as you and I understand what 

This love means, we are the only ones 

Who matter. 

So baby sister, hold this here in your 

Heart: The sky shall always be Blue and 

Heavens gates shall always be White. 

Our love has been lead by the knowledge 

Of God so, there's no such thing as 

Suffering.

Your life are the ripples in my heart beat 

So, even with our breath, I'll always 

Wake up to you. 

Life is as beautiful as your could have

Been curly hair and silhouette. Even 

With out breath, you are still my love

Photo curtsy of @Syleecia

 (Dr.Syleecia Thompson)

Granny

Granny, 

I watched you for 15 years. 

Sweat on forehead. 

And Boiling pots of greens on the stove all while juggling 

6 children and 

10 Grand children 

in your bosom. 

I watched you bend your back but never break at the seams, 

you wrote the definition of Classy. However, in Tchula Mississippi 

you never attended classes. 

You were too busy dabbing your sweat with 

The fabric of our lives, 

no matter what the white 

people say. 

you dabbed your sweat 

with cotton from the fields.  

you were never a slave. 

But, the cruelty of Madea 

left you 

in scorching suns & bare foot. 

Her anger left you fear shook. 

   

 I remember the story of her almost making strange fruit out of you.

Fear in my ears listening to you, 

my heart stood on its 

tippy toes in standing ovation 

of you. 

Your the only black that escaped a noose

 already tied around their neck by one who was their same 

black. 

Blue. 

You. 

     You, taught me to 

never see color cause 

your first love was

 black as a oil slick. 

You called him Willy. 

Willy didn't care you

 had my momma at 14 

by a yella man. 

My papas name is 

Jack. 

Sunshine for short 

of making it shine in the 

mid night hour, 

you taught me color is 

never important. 

    That in love, to be color blind.

     Jack, 

as Indian as he is, 

he loved you & his baby girl like

 he loved his Salt pork collared greens & whiskey. 

        

Chicago made your country hearts as city as my sin. 

Papa called me sin city, 

cause my daddy named me 

Jazz. 

Mamma told me you 

never approved of my father but, 

you never disapproved of my existence. 

     For 11 years I was the 

only girl in those last 

18 years to have the 

Malone blood, 

my daddy in spite named me 

Brooks. 

You wanted me to have your last name so the world could have someone to remember you by but, my name doesn't have to change to have that happen. 

      When your dead and gone,

 this world will remember you from the swivel in my hips, 

the holy in my tong and 

the yellow in my skin. 

      This world will know, that 

Louise 

Is not my Grandmother but, 

my Granny 

cause you walked with a lean 

you blamed on your arthritis but, 

I refused to believe cause you 

were too cool to wear orthopedic shoes. 

   They'll know you're my Granny from touching my arms. 

All the women in our family got them "wings," are what you called them. 

        Granny, 

 I admire every ball of sweat that never 

fell to the floor cause you were too strong to let any part of you 

fall. 

You always bend but never break. You resemble a palm tree. 

Always swaying from side to side but always strong enough to with stand the strength of any storm. 

      Granny, you taught me how to dance in the rain cause I'm a woman, we always bounce 

back no matter how bad the pain,  

We always bend but 

WE

never. Ever. Break.

Sheldon

Who ever told you that mental patients don't deserve to be treated like human? Just because they have schizophrenic heart beats don't mean that their beat isn't worth dancing to. 

      They have just as much love in their sacrifice, upbeat tempo in they temples on a good day and they also know it's okay to be themselves. 

       Sheldon, they told you you'd never make it because of your stutters, your slurred speech & your irregular heart beat but, that beat taught me what being your best friend was really like. 

     That beat turned this world upside down & made earths rattles sound like a repetitive melody. 

     No one ever dared tell me we couldn't be friends because we were too different cause they knew, I'd razor blade bedazzle their jaws into an apology. I'd protect you without permission or recognition or even regret. 

       Sheldon, I'll march in any revolution & through the stoning of the sinless just to make sure America recognizes you human & their inhumanity. 

       Who said that people with mental desires can't be best friends? 

Sheldon is my best friend. 

   So, never feel sorry because we can't get on roller coasters together, I'll ride the Tea cups with you any day if it meant I could spare you the heart ache. I refuse to let you be defined buy the ignorance of the people and the preconceived notions of what it all means. 

      Sheldon you my homie. We taped daps & power claps when we were in the womb. Told the jokes off of bubble gum wrappers as if they were our own & called the same women mommy even though they weren't our own but, non of that mattered cause; even if forever never makes it to use you'll still manage to take the title of BFF. 

        Sheldon, even when you can't mumble the syllables of my nick name I'll always know when you're calling on me, we got that best friend telepathy. But, we're more like siblings and no one is great enough to be as great as you so even when you don't know yourself, never be afraid of you. 

The Brave

Allergies & emotions mixing like Tequila shots & Drama.  I felt your mouths pollen scrape the rigged walls of my Grammatically incorrect vagina. Incorrect cause thugs like you call it Pussy. Incorrect cause fucked up thugs like you, try to rape women & make the pulse in our palms & the pulse in our walls half as tight as they were before you shuffled yourself in between our legs like a track on a tape pulled out eight track. All over the place. 

      I reframed from making it appear that I was attached onto your bitter parts & that my body had nothing to do with that. But, I still can't wash you off me. My body feels like a trigger & my fingers, the suicidal teen that got not just bullied but, raped because a congresses man said that with my hip huggers & long hair, We rape easy. 

         I'm the trigger cause at any point I could fire & set this whole school off. First name Sandy Last name Hook. We are our own Sandy Hook. 

    This Tequila's making me latch my flesh to a trigger, my emotions is filling the Fourth of July into my uncles army gun cause, Iraq & Chicago started looking like fraternal twins 6 years ago. 

      This city could never put legendary on it's back cause too many girls want to become women so they arch their backs, lay on their back & wonder why America turns their back when they ask "can you bring my Daddy back?" 

       We're not America the Free, we're America the killers get to Walk free. We're not America the brave, more like America the cowardly. With our heads in the lions mouth waiting on Sam to claim us as his uncle. See, I'm starting to think that, that man's a stripper cause we throw more money at him than we do our own bills just to see him dance to a crooked tune & have dinner with our dollars that could fund jobs to end the resurrection of the false gods who spit bars that lock them in tragedy tighter than any noose could ever be.

       In these streets, we mix Allergies with emotions in excuse to pop Molly's & fuck bitches against their will...Call that rape with no rubber.