Dear me,

After everything we’ve been through, why can’t you be normal. All the good things that happen throughout your life , despite our brown skin or that I’m a woman and all the other bullshit society throws at us , we still are extremely blessed. So why can’t we stop being sad.

Once upon a time suicide seemed like the answer but now I want to live for more. Only I find myself surrounded by love and feeling so unseen and alone. Lately, we’ve been staying strong because the tears have run out and I ask you “ how much longer?”. How much longer will our heart ache from things that our mother experienced. Nights we’ve cried ourselves to sleep contemplating the trails of our family . Cancer taking grandma away always causes a random outburst of tears and suddenly a happy moment is ruined. Now we’re in the middle of a conversation crying our eyes out because we can’t shake this pain. Why?! What did I do in my pass life to deserve so much hate and hurt.

The blades don’t seem as helpful as they once did. Night after night standing in the mirror analyzing myself and trying to fall more and more in love with MYSELF! Only it’s hard when our mind is full of negativity from people who were suppose to love, support and protect us. I guess we grew up to be just like them.—“ I promise I never knew you were there. I never felt you. For weeks I was going crazy trying to figure out why my body was changing. Daddy didn’t know either and if we did know we wouldn’t have let you go. We both need you and can’t wait for you to come but as you sit up with God tell him how mommy is trying her best down here. In the mornings I cry thinking of you & how we’re suppose to be growing together as we speak. How your grandparents would have celebrated and probably you’d helped them work things out and stop the divorce. Hell might have even brought your grandpops something to do during his days instead of falling into depression. Only I wasn’t intentionally hurting you, and there’s where it hurts the most. We mourn over you and as crazy as it seems we never knew you but you won’t be forgotten!”.

Wishing I could forgot so many things. From men who’s beds I thought would bring me the comfort of another lover. Coping with problems by smoking and drinking then partaking in sensual encounters because it’s better than feeling what you actual feel. Wish someone could take that numbing emotion and strip away the fear of being alone. Yeah, I know I’m fucked up, we’ve known this for years but if I could only have foreseen my own steps of life. If I’d known , maybe been more careful.... his weight wouldn’t have overtaken me. My words wouldn’t have been looked over or drowned out. All our 19 years of living we were stern to be careful who to talk to, don’t be too nice, don’t be too mean, stay to ourselves, don’t go alone with anyone, don’t wear things when you know better. It still found us. It found us as if we were the criminal as if we were the one causing havoc and wrecking people for life. It found me and took from us until I didn’t care who took us. Until silence was the only sound, even throughout the huffing and puffing; Until my tears stopped falling and my mind drifts into a space. As we float I wonder who gave you the audacity to come and steal from me. The one thing I had complete and total control over , the thing we gifted to men who’d earned their place in my life, men who we’d want to experience maybe once, the thing we knew better than any other being knew and the thing that was mine. It came in without warning and without letting me say goodbye to myself.

She walked out the room as clear as day, and has been wondering ever since.

It never apologized, it never tried to help bring her back and here I am left searching, abandoned and broken. Yeah , so I know we’re fucked up but why just for a moment; Why can we be normal?