Sweet girl,

I remember you.

I remember you standing in between your father and another grown man.

Your wrists no bigger than the twigs we pulled off aspen trees.

You were so unbearably, heartbreakingly small.

I remember you yelling ‘NO DAD’

With your entire body and the strength your mother’s voice had forgotten.

…………..

In my dreams we are fighting the same man.

We are fighting your father.

In my sister’s dreams we are fighting the same man.

We are fighting your father.

In my mother’s dreams,

In my aunts dreams, we are all fighting the same man.

We have always been fighting your father.

……………..

We have always been fighting his father.

………………

In my best dreams you are safe.

In my best dreams I hold you in my arms and we convince you that you are not alone.

……………..

I remember your only public profile picture.

How tall you have grown since they moved you to the desert.

How beautifully you have grown since I last knew you.

……………

Sweet girl,

I will always miss you.

I drop a penny in every fountain I see and whisper your name.

I never hear a single coin hit the bottom.

…………….

Sweet girl,

I see you in every terrified girl-child that I meet in this plantation.

I see you in the mirror every morning.

…………….

May god bless and keep you,

My dearest, my sweetest, my bravest, my smallest sister.

May god free you from our family.