may my pleas guide her safely back to us...

i thrust these words into the air hoping they will stick to the sky and shine bright like a beacon to call you home.

i make my plea that somehow by whispering these words, typing these words onto a monitor's screen, thinking these words, the will i wish to awaken within you will take root and bring you home.

i don't care where you've been.

i don't care why you left.

i only care that you come back.

cuz i worry when i don't know where you are. i know you like to disappear in the face of situations that will require coping skills you have yet to recognize you possess, but this time we can't afford to look for you. i know you're scared you're gonna lose your mom. i'm just as scared of losing my granny.

but we still have each other, auntie. we still have our love for each other.

and i DO love you.

i remember when you taught me how to play 'chopsticks' on the piano when i was five. you were young and cloaked in dreams that fell like wings upon your shoulders. i remember wanting to fly like you, to have nothing but the sky to reach for and know i could dance on the same clouds you told me would taste like cotton candy. i learned how to play by ear from you, how to love music like it was a faithful lover that would never leave me.

i remember when you taught me how to sing off-key when i was seven. cha.ka kh.an was your idol and you were mine. i emulated your every move, content to be your shadow because i knew even your shadow would shine in the wake of your light. i loved the way you laughed, the giggles springing from you like a deluge of joy soaking me right down to the bone. i would greedily gulp the sound of it, flooding my soul parched from a pubescent existence drawn dry from my father's death four years earlier.

i remember when you taught me how to breathe in a smoke-filled movie theatre on 42nd street, how to hear the dialogue above the drunken yells of everybody around us. i was so shocked and afraid and you laughed at me, corraling a smile from my lips as you made everything okay when you winked at me and held me close. i don't even remember that damn movie, but i remember how safe i felt riding the subways with you at 2 in the morning. i was ten.

i remember when you taught me how bitter betrayal stings when you stole all my brother's money. you played like you had no idea what we were talking about, your face a mask of crackhead composure even as the lies bled from your mouth, a wound left open only cuz you'd hidden the band-aid of your pipe beneath your mattress. i cussed you out and disowned you as only a thirteen year old could, dismissing you from my sight while assuming it'd be just that easy to rid you from my heart.

but it's never that easy, is it?

i remember when you taught me that dreams with wings sometimes soar too high too fast and folk who aren't prepared for the desent will crash and burn. i began to fear heights because i was witnessing the darkness of your lows and i figured it was just better to stay grounded at all times, to never have hope for things beyond my reach. i learned to play it safe, to find solace in stagnancy because being dynamic required strength and courage to move against the driving wind and i didn't have those things, because i thought you didn't have those things. i aged fifteen years during this time.

i remember when we talked and i realized i never really knew you at all. i reflected your surface but had never bothered submerging myself within your depths because i had judged you to be just as shallow as your actions said you were. it wasn't until that talk that i realized i reflected more than just the figure and look of you. you too had been molested as a child. you too had been raped as a young woman. i was able to see what you were doing to yourself in a different light. i recognized the self-hatred that led you to mutilate your spirit, to chop it up, stick it in a pipe, and smoke it. you thought it was worth less than the rock you bought on the street for the price of your lips upon dirty dicks, your tongue licking sweaty balls. you thought you were worthless.

just as i did when i slept around without a care for how i was treated, when i tried to commit suicide because i figured i wasn't worthy of happiness because i let myself be molested and raped. i might not have done exactly what you did, but what i did i did for the same reasons you did. we both reflected a lack of love for ourselves.

and we're so much alike, auntie. i see you fighting. i know your demons are more fierce and fire-breathing than mine and you've had more difficulty battling them. i know you are brought down by the weight of your dreams, once diaphanous and light, now falling from your shoulders in unwieldy tatters edged in acrid ashes.

i know because i fight everyday to prevent the depression from taking up residence in my mind. i fight to find worth in myself without having to seek external validation for it. i fight in part to show you that your reflection is beautiful because i am, for better or worse, a direct reflection of you.

i find acceptance with myself by accepting you. i find a way to love myself unconditionally by loving you, no matter what.

and i love you so very much.

that never stopped, auntie. no matter what you did, i could never stop loving you.

come home auntie.

come home please.

[to my blog fam. i know i have your thoughts and prayers. i apologize for the somber mood my blog has taken on recently, but such is life, right? know that we're all holding down the fort. this is both a sad time and a time for remembering, but in remembering, i revisit all the great times and that can't be bad, right? thank you for reminding me of that...you know who you are...

i just want to thank you for the support. i hope this entry reminds you of someone in your family you might have cast aside because of their behavior. you hurt because you love them. reach out and bring them back to you if you can.

i wrote this as a tribute to her, to let her know that even in those times when she was acting her ugliest, it was all just an act, cuz beauty ain't just skin deep with her...it's to the bone.

keep praying for us. i hope she really is just hiding. i won't contemplate the other option.]