A Black Girl (Book 1)

Got Them Girls Talkin 'Bout

 CAUTION: Severe use of profanity.

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“Girl you aint smiled since yesterday and you been mopin around here like you aint got no friends.” Rhoda says from where she sits on her bed juggling Kizzy.

I bury my face into the comforter of my single bed and inhale a tear, “Cuz I don’t have any friends.”

Or at least I don’t feel like I have any friends. Not any real friends, except for my stuffed bear Barney.

Rhoda stands and she would be considered frail if her belly wasn’t still so big from having Kizzy. She’d be a beautiful frail nineteen year old girl, with hair so long and silky it could be mistaken for quality Remy weave, a face so clear she could model for Clearasil and a smile so pure and innocent you would think that she was a virgin. But life fucks us all and her scummy ex had a couple of rounds before he dipped off and headed to Ohio University on a basketball scholarship.

I’m so sad, for her, for me, for every woman who’s ever had to feel the pain of finding out that they mean so little to someone who means so much. She was so close to getting out of here, she could have went to college, she could have moved away from this neighborhood, but Kingston happened. He made her rethink who she was, he whispered in her ear, took her precious pearl, crushed it and left her with a child he wants nothing to deal with.

But Kizzy rebels, she looks exactly like him. There’s no way in hell he could refuse her, it would be like pushing himself away. She has his eyes, his easy smile and a light tint that couldn’t have come from Rhoda with her mahogany skin. And her hair, it curls so brilliantly, it’s his too.

“Why you didn’t talk to Jamal when he came over last night.”

I drag the tip of my nose against the comforter, it hurts but it feels good too, “Because he’s a ho and I hate him.”

The baby gurgles, “Sis we both knew he was dipping from the go. What did mama tell us when we were little?”

Mama, the thought of her brings on a fresh new round of tears because she can’t be here for me. I want to wrap my arms around her waist and tell her how much I hate love, tell her how much it hurts to love someone who’s too busy loving everyone else. I swallow and try to speak calmly though rivers are running from my eyes, “You can’t turn a yard dog into a house dog.”

“And aint that the truth?” her slender body passes me by, her thin hips wagging gently under the weight of the baby in her arms. Her voice trails off as she walks out but I can still hear her words and her tone as clearly as if she were up to a microphone, “Why I aint listen to mama?”

I’ve been thinking lately about my life and how it’s not turning out how I wanted it to. I’m a year shy of graduating and I haven’t accomplished anything I said I was going to. I haven’t gotten a job,, and because of that I don’t have my own car and I barely have a cell phone. I haven’t joined a club or gone to a single dance or went to a honest to God sleepover. I’m not in a sport…I’m not in anything.