My Pen is

My Peace is My Pen

Arguing happens again, the police at the door making reports of domestic abuse. Screams can be heard down the alley from my bedroom window. Gunshots ricochet from the bricks of my home, on the floor we sleep. We wake to see the damage, blood spilled in the streets where we played. Let’s see who can catch this football in the vacant lot of a church that supplied the neighborhood with supplies such as clothing and food. The neighbors running trap houses as kids wait for seven o’clock to hear Mr. Frostee tunes blaring from around the corner. I can remember begging for dollars from the locals just for a vanilla soft served cone. My mother always liked hers dipped. We get ready for dinner, another soulful meal prepared by the man and woman that loved us.

As me and my siblings sat down, we each quote a passage from Psalms 23. I had the luxury of quoting the last passage, “my cup runneth over surely goodness and mercy and it shall follow me all the days of my life. Amen.” we recited this daily and as we passed the cornbread muffins we laughed at the days problems as if we would have a bond tjat can last forever. That changed swiftly as we grew. From four at the table to three. After dinner was movies and I can guess, we would watch the Amityville Horror(‘79) and other original classics from the 80’s and 90’s. I’d stay under my mother and her company as long as my story ended with a goodnight.

The heretics of my mother teaching us what she didn’t practiced played over again each waking day. My pen started as a silent thought of a secret I couldn’t keep. It was one of a a kind, embraced by a type writer placed on the dryer collecting dust. One day as I was doing laundry I decided that I wanted to give this a try. I wanted to write more of what was brewing inside that I could no longer hold still. I typed the first few lines and worked the type writer like I was born in the era. Once I completed a few sentences I ejected the paper and ran upstairs to show my mother. “Look, look.” I said twice to get her attention. As always she looked onward not paying me any mind. The second to four children. I was use to that kind of treatment. I continued in my long haunt for survival. I was 14 at the time, and didn’t understand what I had manifested.

Not long after that, I won first place in an oratorical contest speaking about the infamous Rosa Parks, oh, what a delight it was to speak so profound of a shero. My pen then became my grace. Shortly after, I would lose my grandmother to a drug overdose and that’s something I could never understand. I could never understand addicts but I could understand them if that makes sense. I thought helping her would be giving her love she never had, showing up for ways no one would show up for her. I thought I was enough. I penned together pieces of my heart in her obituary along with another special person lost just a month prior. I felt sorry for them but their love expelled in places in me that I still feel this day. I still feel the need to write to make a difference. My pen still bleeds the blood of my angels. Their stories cant go unwritten.

I wrote on days when the sun shined the brightest and on nights where the cold can be heard through the wind. I wrote to feel at ease, and I wrote special pieces for all to see and feel. My pen was my comfort; it was my peace, my everlasting nightmares were over when I found my pen. I wrote love letters, poems, recipes, and remedies. I wrote guides, and short stories all to feel like I can fit into a world where I knew my intelligence didn’t belong. As I grew older I knew it would come alive and the mercies my pen had shown me gave me the antidote to find the grace of the Holy Spirit. At 35, I can see that my pen lifted the weight of my heart, and showered me with the complacency of I know it’ll get us through.

I love my pen for all the .15 cent she’s worth. My pen has become my accolade, my burden of proof. My pen knows my sorrows, my peace, my reasons, my excuses, and my errors. My pen is my best friend and if I was to ever lose her, I’d think death would be imminent. From 7 up until now, I know my pen is the reason I smile with the light I shed, and love from the ballpoint from even indent, to every page handwritten, my pen has told my story, and left an impact that’s unforgettable.

My pen maybe changed due to time, but my pen has been the most dependable assortment to the assertion of my heart. My existence would not exist if my pen was not the backbone holding my name in place. I love my pen, I trust my pen, and I choose my pen. From my pen to yours together let’s write peace!