childhood
growing up
in slavery
is no life
for a child
braver mothers
than her
protected
through suffocation
five years
old they’re
put
to work
ten years
old they join
the calloused
field hands
sold at one
sold at five
sold at seven
sold at ten
black families
incorrigibly torn apart
at the
jagged seams
vast black families
torn apart by
inhuman
white fa...
I'm holding one hand over my mouth and staring at what I'm holding in the other hand. In it is an old Polaroid of a woman, who's not my mother, holding me immediately after giving birth and the words "Janine's Birth Mother" written on the bottom.
How long can your eyes stay open before you need to blink? I think I just hit the record. My eyes are dryer than a KFC biscuit and, yet, I can't close ...
She walked into the house with an air of calm around her. She wasn’t going to fuss; she wasn’t going to fight. Walking towards the back of the house, she grabbed everything in sight that was hers and put it into her duffle bag. For the past month, she’d been slowly moving her items out of the house; his egocentrism finally worked in her favor.
Ten minutes later, she was back at the front door. S...