i remember squeezing your hand hard during mama's prayers

even with closed eyes

I knew you were smiling

under the table where you kicked my shins

I had a bruise for a week

it turned purple on Wednesday

I told mama I fell

playing too hard

I remember running through grass taller than mama's thick pancake stacks on a Sunday

everything smelled like the ugly summer weeds and mirages and

we were too close to the train tracks

I tripped on my shoe laces

church dress

chest pressed into the dirt

my scraped knees looked like ripped jeans made out of blood and flesh

my tongue tasted gravel

my lungs picked up rust instead of air

I couldn't breath

I watched as you kept running

I heard the train coming

covered my ears

closed my eyes then–

on a Saturday we touched trees with syrup just as sticky as aunt jemima spilling from them. we licked our fingers.

the taste was bitter

but life was sweet again

I remember

covering ourselves in ten layers of clothing to fight a bug that had slipped through the screen door

we were warriors

you always more than me

the dead bee

I remember the

dead bee

I touched it's stinger just to know

what it felt like to be stung

ha, could've just gone to you

right?

on a Tuesday at dinner I took the cup with more juice in it

you hit me when mama went to work that night

and you'd hit me again if I told her

I did

I had a bruise for a week