Submissions by jalaquan

Do you know how difficult it was for me to wake up today? Ask me how many hours I slept today. I wouldn’t be able to answer that question. An hour? ten? 18? 8! That’s the correct number, right? I can’t tell anymore, it all seems to be one big blur, a never ending nightmare that decides by itself when it wants to continue and end. And that has to be the worst part, not being able to tell when it will slowly creep up on me, or when I’ll start denying it’s doing so. I have to ask myself, is it ok to be happy today?  Or will I be forced to fight that losing battle again later on tonight?  I do...

Hey remember that time we used to have braids and competed to see who had the longest hair. How about when mom would say stop arguing and we would both try to get the last word. And there were those times in the car when our elbows would have a battle of death just so see who could get their elbow on top of the others. Even though we had our feuds we could always drop it. I’m sure most of the time we forgot what we were arguing about. Those were good times. You were always interesting to me. I noticed that your mind work differently and I would sometimes look at you with admiration and say to...

Rule 1: Only punks cry! Rule 2: Stop crying! Rule 3: You better fix your face before I fix it for you. Rule 4: Be a man. These phrases, are spoken all too often. Why do we make our youth repeat the things that left scars on us today? In this society, it has become common practice to raise kids without emotions. Those that have them are weak and those without are seen as superior. This is how it has been for generations. Generations of separating emotions from conscious mind (fast), you shouldn’t cry when your sad; you should keep a blank face because only punks cry! Did you catch that? That’s...

Dad, dad, oh that’s right, daddys long gone because statistically as a Black man, I only half the chance of having my father in my life, and unfortunately when that coin of fate got flip it didn’t land on heads, so I couldn’t be face-to-face with my father and have that father son connection that most of my friends seemed to have. Instead, that coin landed on tails which meant I had to watch my father walk out my life into someone else’s and forget all about me.

I remember writing you letters and half way through I would tell myself to “wait” because if you were cowardly enough to...