book meme / misc. stories, jacqueline woodson
content warning for blood and violence.
from the notebooks of melanin sun
this is all anybody needs to be happy.
you planning on staying awhile?
and you’re important to me.
the world doesn’t work that way.
and when i can’t speak it, i write it down.
it feels right and whole and good.
there’ll be a hundred names for him. but he’ll know who he is.
just to let us know we’re still alive.
you just don’t want it to happen, that’s all.
boy, i’ll go upside your head so hard you gonna wish you was never born.
i wish it didn’t matter so much. but it does, doesn’t it?
these are my notebooks. my stories.
it’s like that in our house.
what do you mean, what’s up with that?
i want to do the right thing.
i’m on the outside of things.
sometimes, i don’t have words.
feels like being a stranger in your own house, like everything that used to mean something doesn’t anymore. even your own name.
they don’t mess with me, i don’t mess with them.
you don’t know nothing about me, little boy.
if i was real quiet, it was like i was invisible.
what’s wrong with you, man?
nobody in this room talking to you. you hear anybody call your name?
that’s why i’m here asking you.
then you had to go and open your fat mouth.
like a clock ticking away somebody’s life.
reddest blood i’d ever seen in my life.
i know he didn’t kill anybody.
blow somebody’s head off.
that’s what you think, stupid.
i used to talk all the time.
where’s that boy i used to know, the one who couldn’t be quiet?
but i was just a little kid and nobody else was around.
you need to laugh sometimes.
some days, like today and yesterday and probably tomorrow, that’s all that’s on my mind.
and my voice got quieter. and quieter. and quiet.
this ain’t much, but it’s all i have.
the monsters that come at night don’t breathe fire, have two heads or long claws.
last night this commercial came on tv.
sometimes i sit counting the stars.
the kind of crying where no tears came out.
i mean, we’re not supposed to want to.
