CARBON COPY

picture this:

After years of wondering if your big sister is 

dead or alive,

homeless or housed, 

baby-less or still in custody,

she strolls into your life to hand you a message.

You anxiously get dressed 

but you sho’ you ain’t stressed.

just mildly depressed,

looking to impress the person who didn’t show 

up to your graduation.

And you looked in the crowd, waiting for her.

Another family thanksgiving without her.

Another Christmas.

Another birthday.

I chuckle to myself when I think 

about impressing a person who never cared 

to claim her share in my life.

She sits with you and asks for a drink. 

We watch the ice in her water 

become water. 

She’s a stranger. 

It’s funny when she thinks she can jump 

into yo business before yo eyes

can even blink.

“How’s mom and dad?”

“Same shit different story.”

The same arguments found their way into my nightly skincare routine. 

I mute

myself so my carbon copy 

wouldn’t hear.

Same lack of affection.

Same lying.

Same cheating. 

Same taking him back. 

Same enabling.

Same fake smile when outside comes looking in.

I raise my chin.

To see my sister’s look on her face.

She tries to conjure up the words when she realizes 

the truth of how I’ve been. 

She looks at me with certainty

and says plainly, “you’re nothing like them.”

I didn’t realize it back then 

but that was my moment of clarity.

Peace to when I graduated therapy shortly after telling my parents “You’ve traumatized me, 

friend.”

Shoutout to the carbon copies of women who reflected my mother’s self-lovelessness.

Asé to those cords that have been cut.

Peace to when I asked my mother why she stayed with him and she said it was in the name of a 

love (she never felt).

Shoutout to the carbon copies of my mother and father,

of their codependency, 

of their narcissism, 

with whom I’ve made that same love with.

Asé to knowing the difference between love and shame.

love and abuse.

Love and…

peace to when I noticed 

that the women in my family would rather become 

ill than ask for help.

Peace…

To knowing the exact measurements of my unbeloved father to father and

VOILA!

There goes my grandfather,

 there goes my grandfather’s father, 

there goes my father, there goes 

my father’s father, 

there goes my grandmother, 

there goes my auntie, there goes 

my sisters! 

Shoutout to the carbon copies they made love with, 

without knowing.

Shoutout to my mother and father’s trauma becoming mine.

Asé to heal(ing) from it 

and not being able to recognize my parents

in my love.

Asé to knowing they did the best that they could

and still holding them accountable.

Peace to when I became the carbon copy of my sister 

after my first fight with my father.

Shoutout to my sister’s foreshadowing.

Shoutout to struggling to forgive 

but trying it out anyway.

Shoutout to re-mothering myself,

Shoutout to re-fathering myself,

Shoutout to re/be-friending myself

Shoutout to redefining what it means… to be.

To love.

To leave. 

To grow.

To speak.

To act.

To feel.

To dance.

To nurture.

To create.

To break the curse.

Sister, 

I understand you when you say that it runs in the family and not in the blood.

Asé.