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 youβre important to me.
the world doesnβt work that way.
and when i canβt speak it, i write it down.
it feels right and whole and good.
thereβll be a hundred names for him. but heβll know who he is.
just to let us know weβre still alive.
you just donβt want it to happen, thatβs all.
boy, iβll go upside your head so hard you gonna wish you was never born.
i wish it didnβt matter so much. but it does, doesnβt it?
these are my notebooks. my stories.
itβs like that in our house.
what do you mean, whatβs up with that?
i want to do the right thing.
iβm on the outside of things.
sometimes, i donβt have words.Β
feels like being a stranger in your own house, like everything that used to mean something doesnβt anymore. even your own name.
they donβt mess with me, i donβt mess with them.
you donβt know nothing about me, little boy.
if i was real quiet, it was like i was invisible.
whatβs wrong with you, man?
nobody in this room talking to you. you hear anybody call your name?
thatβs why iβm here asking you.
then you had to go and open your fat mouth.
like a clock ticking away somebodyβs life.
reddest blood iβd ever seen in my life.
i know he didnβt kill anybody.
if theyβre fast enough.
blow somebodyβs head off.
thatβs what you think, stupid.
i used to talk all the time.
whereβs that boy i used to know, the one who couldnβt 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, thatβs all thatβs on my mind.
and my voice got quieter. and quieter. and quiet.
this ainβt much, but itβs all i have.
the monsters that come at night donβt 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, weβre not supposed to want to.
