The Black Sheep
1 min readDec 30, 2023
I was never grateful enough.
Neat enough. Nice enough.
Clever enough. I tried, but I
fell short of a lot of markers.
I felt a lot of guilt and shame.
The harshest siblings, they’ll
corrode your soul. Not that
it sparkled any, since the
beginning. Worn down and
away and rough at the edges,
still rough at the edges, but
my mistakes, mishaps, missteps
are my own. No one standing
over me, judging, scowling,
“You could do better.”
I was imprisoned for crimes I
didn’t commit. Crimes of my
parents, my culture, my
community. Not saying I wasn’t
culpable but it took me some
time to figure what I’d done
wrong. Maybe I did nothing
wrong. Who I *was* was wrong.
That’s harder to change.
Impossible to change, I realized.
It all went to hell after that.
The black sheep can’t dye white.
It dies black unless it gets another
chance and then it works so so
hard to not screw things up again.
To be so so careful of its steps and
words and intentions. It wears a
permanent F on its forehead, for
Forgive me.
LBM 12/30/2023
