Front Porch Sisterhood

The front porch.

Every Southern house, every Midwest farmhouse, every city stoop has one.

But today… it’s more than wood and nails,

more than chipped paint and rusted hinges.

 

The front porch is a woman’s confessional,

a safe haven,

a sisterhood.

 

Two friends sit here.

Maybe they’re rocking in chairs that groan like old bones,

maybe they’re perched on the steps, knees brushing,

or maybe it’s that swing that squeaks—

a song all its own.

 

Here, nobody’s keeping score.

You don’t need to fix your hair,

don’t need to put on church lipstick or hide the gray roots.

The porch don’t care.

And neither does your sister.

 

Because sisterhood—real sisterhood—

it don’t ask you to be perfect.

It just asks you to show up.

To sit.

To breathe.

To pour a glass of sweet tea and tell the truth.

 

The porch has heard it all:

arguments with husbands,

dreams too fragile to say indoors,

prayers whispered for children gone astray,

confessions that sting, like—

“Girl, I almost gave up last night. I almost let go.”

 

And the sister just nods.

She don’t rush to fix it.

She don’t preach.

She just rocks with you,

lets the silence be holy.

Because sometimes that’s all you need—

somebody to sit with you while the storm rolls in.

 

The porch is where time slows down.

Where laughter shakes the windows,

and tears slip quiet between the boards.

Where memories stitch together like quilts handed down.

 

Remember the summer nights

when lightning bugs lit the yard like lanterns,

and y’all sat shoulder to shoulder,

dreaming about the future?

 

Remember the winters,

when cold air burned your lungs,

but you still stepped out together,

because some conversations couldn’t wait for spring?

 

That’s the porch.

That’s sisterhood.

 

It don’t matter the color of your skin,

the size of your bank account,

or the weight of your burdens.

On the porch,

we’re just women.

Just souls in rocking chairs.

Just daughters of the same God,

holding each other up when the world feels too heavy.

 

And hear me—

the porch is wide enough.

Wide enough for your fear and mine.

For broken dreams and fresh hope.

For truths that don’t always line up neatly.

 

That swing?

It might squeak, it might lean,

but it still holds.

And that, my sisters,

is how we hold one another.

 

So here’s my plea,

May every woman find her porch.

May every sister find her chair.

May every secret, every laugh, every silence

be cradled by wood that remembers,

by friends who refuse to let go.

 

Because at the end of the day,

we don’t need more platforms.

We need more porches.

*“Places where we can show up—barefoot, messy, undone—

and still be loved.

 

So come sit with me.

Here, on this front porch of ours.

The tea is cold,

the stories are waiting,

and the sisterhood—

the sisterhood never ends.”

* Extended version