Brown Girl Dreaming

“You have those walls up all around you...Come a day you gonna want to tear them down brick by brick and gonna find that the cement is all hard. What you gonna do then?”
― Jacqueline Woodson, The Dear One

“When we can't find my sister, we know / she is under the kitchen table, a book in her hand, / a glass of milk and a small bowl of peanuts beside her. / We know we can call Odella's name out loud, / slap the table hard with our hands, / dance around it singing 'She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain' / so many times the song makes us sick / and the circling makes us dizzy / and still / my sister will do nothing more / than slowly turn the page.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming