My Cousins

By Kristin Nguyen

 

 

My Cousins have two sides,

One side book-smart

The other street-smart

Me

I’m in between

I like the street-smart better

I’m more like them

My family is mostly short

and they have dark hair

Drugs hop around the street-smarts

Some were forced to do drugs

By friends and the other sides of their families

I don’t see them much

or some at all for a while

But I know they have my back

Me

I have their back too

Their more similar to me than my siblings

One is gonna teach me how to drive standard

He drives a white Honda

My other cousin I haven’t heard from in awhile

She’s 17 years old,skinny,short,and she has a lot of tattoos

“slam,slam!”

The pipe slammed into her face

She was forced to do drugs

Last time I saw her was at a family party

We ate on the little wall

On the side of the highway

A lot of my cousins used to go there

But we all don’t hang out anymore

“vroom,vroom!”

We listen and watch the cars go by

I can smell her cigarette

As she tells me about her life experiences

That I missed out on.