RHYME Poem: My Sister, Still, by Nas Jolaade

When they named my sister a mistake,
the ceiling groaned, the floor seemed to quake.
Silence thickened—an iron weight,
heavier than bread our mother kneads with fate.
She lingered half-in, half-out of the door,
her palms clutching cloth as if sewing her core.
No wall replied, though walls can tell,
how sorrow gathers where shadows dwell.

Then came a voice, sharp, glacial, clean:
“At least the portion is now foreseen.”
But I, who had swallowed the hush of years,
rose with a tongue carved out of tears:
“My sister is still my sister!” I cried,
“Blood is not debt that can be denied.
Family is no ledger to balance or cross,
nor love so brittle it fractures at loss.

My sister is still my sister, whole—
blood is no ink to erase a soul.
Though the world may spit ‘bastard’ in scorn,
I claim her kin, as the night claims morn.
For love, though broken, refused, misread,
still lingers fierce in the marrow’s stead.
Deep in the bone where the root-lines stay,
truth keeps vigil; it will not fray.”

Author: poetryfest

Submit your Poetry to the Festival. Three Options: 1) To post. 2) To have performed by an actor 3) To be made into a film. View all posts by poetryfest