The Runaway
By Pamela Sneed
Despite horrible treatment
The lack of acceptance care
The threats
Giving away all I stand to inherit
Despite the lies
passing for white
The hatred towards Black women and girls
in specific me
Despite the competing
The constant need to feel better than me
at tremendous cost
Despite the selfishness
Lack of generosity
Never in my life receiving 5 dollars
Except on Christmas maybe
Despite the mental illness
The lack of responsibility by almost everyone including her
I kind of secretly still admire my mother
That still amidst all
She still creates her enemy
Still creates an escape
The only lessons of merit she gave were
her black and blue bruises
The advice not to let it happen to me
Get an education she’d say
Throughout all my father’s beatings
She always kept a blue suitcase
I’m leaving she’d say
Though she never did
The last twenty years she believes there’s a man
who robs her daily steals food clothes jewelry
Takes the knobs off drawers
Destroys plants
She says I’m moving
I’ve got to get away
I think of my mother still
As one of the slaves I most admire
The ones who took freedom into their own hands
Would not accept the yoke
Daily she plans an escape
Even if it’s dream or delusion
My mother is a runaway.