Excuse me? Did you see the soul of a lil black girl run by? She bout 5 feet tall with a smile bright and wide, and a couple of pink barrettes missin’ from her week old braids. Tell me...have you seen her? Cause I need her. She left me, running in fear of reality, in fear of everything that I, that we, never wanted to exist but somehow was dropped into our life at the brink of unhappiness, at the brink of “Maybe I should just keep quiet cause they don’t understand and they never will”. She won’t come back and it hurts cause I’ve tried all I could. I’ve called, searched, tried to lure her in with everything that we once loved and every time she gets close, the rope SNAPS and she drowns in slow motion, waiting for me to save her but I don’t know how. I’ve sat on the edge of every dock that she ever fell at accompanied by thoughts with my hands stretched out, filled with cotton candy, scented erasers, and false dreams yet all have been ducked, and dodge by her. WHY WONT SHE COME BACK!? I’ve cried so many times just like a women cries when her lover just can’t stay. SHE WAS MY LOVER, SHE WAS ME and somehow an in- revivable part of me was taken with her, somehow I LEFT MYSELF. All to protect her innocence, her lovely ness, her youth, her shine, her JOY! Where did she go? This is not something to be placed away on a cold dusty shelf, no this is my smile, this is my control, this is my love, this is my confidence, this is my energy, this is my joy, this is ME! Excuse me....are you her?