It has been years since your death,
  and I’m sorry.
  I’m sorry for being ever so distant with you.
  even when I was just learning how to write
  I drove you away.
  And even in death, I drove you away.
  I was always afraid of you, but you loved me so much.
  I regret it now.
  I often blamed myself for not being close with you,
  when you were always just a few streets over from my great-         grandmother.
  I miss the way your house smelled of…what did it smell like again?
  I’m sorry I don’t remember, but the crackheads and local        prostitutes ruined your original.
  But I can’t recall how we lost touch.
  I was accidentally exorcising your existence from out of my space and time. 

 I often blamed myself for not being close with you,

  when you are always just a few streets over from my great-    grandmother.
  One day, mother said she felt wrong, so she called you
  “Wrong number”- a strange man.
  She went to you so quick, but too late.
  There was dark blood in the toilet and you were cold.
  Dead on arrival, my mother found you.
  We all knew it was foul play.
  But when you are a old, black woman you don’t matter
  because apparently it was “your time” anyway.
  Your funeral gave me nightmares for days.
  Dreaming about you taking my grandfather

  your son, away from me
  Your spirit lingered in our house dark, desolate house for   sometime.
   It was worse at night.
   Just hearing your ghost knock over the little trinkets.
   It was always worse at night.
  I often blamed myself for not being close with you,
  when you are always just a few streets over from my great-    grandmother.
  What a shame.