This is for my sister.

She was born March 2, 1988, weighted two ounces larger than a spoiled cantaloupe. This warriors name is Jasimaira Olajuwon Michelle Joshua and yes her name is just that long. She was born 3 months prematurely with lungs that almost vise griped her soul, but almost doesn’t counts and God was not through with her yet. I think that he was playing favoritism; he let her ripen a little earlier because he knew that the tree that she came from was not going to last much longer. Sicicle Cell sliced her family roots leaving her motherless with a father who was too drunk and too high to care less about his starving seeds so she was left with four uncles and two aunts trying to hold shit together, but how to do you stitch back a soul who doesn’t remember their name much least where they came from. I call her Jazz cause just like the music you could always hear her pain through her beauty, her tears carry spirits of Coltrane and Holiday, but she’s not trying to sing the blues but just be like every other kid she knows and give her mother flowers on Mother’s Day not beating fist on a cold graves cause amnesia bound ghost can’t keep you warm at night. She came from a boy who was not quite ready to be a man much less a Father, so she decided to follow me…. And I hated her… really. Everything I had, she wanted. Every boy I liked, she was in love before I could get out his last name. Every time I cried watching Dawson’s Creek, she laughed, sides in stitches about my fragile state. Just knowing that she was living in the same house as me made me sick. I didn’t know that the best parts of me was going to leave when her Delinquent Father finally decided to be Daddy and said that he was going to do right by her and her new sister Mercedes and mommy. Little did we know that bruises in the shape of half moons would be her new mommy putting Jazz in her place. Tiny ribs shown through broken skin would be the new rule the Mercedes eats first while you are fed the scraps. My cousin had the most beautiful hair in the world; angels even wanted to know her secret, it was part of the reason why I hated her in the first place, even it was not able to hold up to the weight of her world and became insolvent to her roots. Leaving entrails of when she was happy on her pillow. She would have cleaned it up but when your new family ties have cut you off, locking you in the basements, you’re not really worried about company stopping by. At 13, she discovered the power of a simple kiss, how four lips seem to bind two souls into one. At 15, she fell in love with a varsity basketball player; she loved the way the light from the gym floor danced on her skin. At 17, she finally told me “Sissy, I have a girlfriend” and I told her, ”ok”, because somehow I already knew. We were like twins who got lost in the mail somehow, and every time I am near her I can still feel our connection. And I wish that right then I told her that this world was not ready for you. That woman will hurt you as much if not more than men do. People will tell her that God does not love you, that he in fact hates you. And indeed if God is that unkind, I will give you whatever I have left in heartbeats, stretch out my soul on crosses to ensure your flame retarded suit will be waiting for you. If I could I would take back all the times that I was mean to you. Take back the times that I said that I hated you. Tell you every time you look at the sky I can see the Goddess that made you smile. Tell you that your hands are shaped like your mother’s and even though you have never been formally introduced, know that she gave up her last breath for you. Tell you that even though you go by Josh, rock J’s in every color known to Man and pull finer woman that make my homeboys say DAMN.. Know that you are still Jasimaira Olajuwon Michelle Joshua, you are still your mother’s daughter, and you will always be my high yellow warrior sister, you will always be beautiful.