“You make me feel the way Christmas did when I was a kid, I’d close my eyes look to the skies and magic became real.”

You danced the fine line between graceful and reckless and this is what I wake to wait for.

I spy a life on fire and taken for granted by me.

Needing leave clumsy me – spilling mustard on my sleeve as cover-up for all the talk of love.

You and your sea glass green kaleidoscope eyes have always been my kryptonite.

We’re outsiders- you and I- we could almost be brilliant.

I hope your lemonade tastes like young summers and old times.

Things will change – that’s the best and worst of it.

The world knew it couldn’t break you unless you listened to it talking shit thought and broke yourself.

I dream of you in constellations.

And there in the mirror staring into your shadows eyes red nosed and mascara freckled you’ll recognize yourself again.

Maybe we could begin entwined – not whole – but one again.

Your forever is always worth waiting for.

I wish you the wildest of dreams.

Thank you for believing in me the way I used to.

At least now the stars are in good company.

You look like smell like taste like home.

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.

In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education.

It takes so little to make a child happy, that it is a pity in a world full of sunshine and pleasant things, that there should be any wistful faces, empty hands, or lonely little hearts.

If your child marches to a different beat, a different drummer, you might just have to go along with that music. Help them achieve what’s important to them.

What white man has ever seen me drunk? Who has ever come to me hungry and left me unfed? Who has seen me beat my wives or abuse my children? What law have I broken?

Father asked us what was God’s noblest work. Anna said men, but I said babies. Men are often bad, but babies never are.

A child born to a Black mother in a state like Mississippi… has exactly the same rights as a white baby born to the wealthiest person in the United States. It’s not true, but I challenge anyone to say it is not a goal worth working for.

When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness sake. But don’t make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion faster than adults, and evasion simply muddles ’em.