Dookie Braid

What color am I? Who am I? Dookie braids burned at the ends, clasped with a gold crown. Innocence stripped for someone else’s background. Long legs, high waist; no validation of love to tell me I belong in this place-in your space. More verbal abuse please. More emotional abuse. For I am a background one day solid fortitude will produce.


Hello pain.

Thank you rejection.
I am a beautiful mess of your perfection; the dark one, the fat one, the unwanted family reminder projected in memory’s backdrop now surfacing against jagged edges.
Several cuts deep and I’m bleeding crisp white sheets.


You drove my hand to speak unspoken and unspeakable stories.
Your harsh shadows now adjusted with bright lights usher my many words into the foreground.


I accept you, past. You birthed this creative mind, helping me process my mother’s death over time; but speak of her again ink and pen.


Yes! I’m that brazen sound coming out from the shadows of my past’s background. I perceive you world through love, loss, and pain.



No weak woman! I’m no weak woman.
I’ll slave over life’s final act and climax. I’m writing a legacy of inspiration that not only entertains, but provokes change, commands brilliant thinkers, dares the dreamers to enter my world.


Hello Background. I’m re-writing life... Fade in.

Written By: Carmen Tenille Russell