Sometimes sisterhood gets switched
and you don’t even really realize what you’ve missed,
until you’re twenty-something.

She is our eldest. 15 months older than Ashleigh,
who is 15 months older than me.

She turned 25 this year.

Her body is stuck with a brain that’s 2
and growing up the only thing I could do
Was headdown, headdown, headdown.

Cause mom always beat her worse.
And mom always screamed at her first.
And mom was the reason why she could curse
like all the mean kids on the block.

Even though she could only say words
Like juice or help or please.

And if you were ever as small as me
(my friends still call me sum pea)
You’d pray to God you wouldn’t get hit too.

Sometimes sisterhood gets switched
and you can’t help but stay fixed
on hard truths you hear when you grow up.

Like how dad cried for days
When that new vaccine was made.
18 years too late.

Or when the family let it slip
That mom was fucked up when her baby first got sick
And that’s why her fever got so bad.

Sometimes sisterhood get switched
and your whole future gets eclipsed
knowing that you’re gonna be a caretaker someday.

And not for just your ailing dad,
but for your big sister first.

I used to get mad but now it makes me ache.
How maybe if she had her mind,
someone could have taught me about rape.

Or if she could use her legs and feet,
we could’ve ran and flown up the street
instead of hiding in our rooms and books.

Or if she had more reasons to laugh,
mom wouldn’t have been so trapped,
and maybe she wouldn’t have been so mean.

But I don’t know if any of that would have been true,
So I promise you big sister this is what I’ll do:

I won’t be like our mama.
I won’t leave my kids with so much trauma.
We will love and kiss and laugh and cry.

And learn and find and scream and try.
We’ll wonder, explore and do more than get by.
And I’ll love my kids no matter how they come out.

They’ll know and love their Aunts Sonny and Ashleigh
But I haven’t quite decided if they’ll know their Grandma Debi.