I lost my mom, not my need or ability to be mothered.

Seventeen years ago, the trill of a million cicadas greeted my sisters and me as we left the church where our mother raised us. They landed on our car and shouted above our grief as we followed the hearse down a long Virginia road. Each mile took us farther away from the life we knew. Each minute took us further from our own memory.

There are three things I hate more than anything in the world. Three things that I find terrifying, horrifying and down-right creepy:

Porcelain Dolls,

Clowns, and

Puppets.

At this moment

There is a bird singing that doesn’t know

She was never supposed to be here.

We are not friends because when you chose not to be a friend to my Blackness, you chose not to be a friend to me.