in the efforts of my life from a young age, i never understood why i was the way i was.
from the tiny details to the genetic functions formally known as the features i grace today. even then, before i paid attention to those things—i felt complicated.
as in, i didn't understand myself. i was like this big jumbled up algebra equation and for a child of my stature at the time, no understanding was required in order for me to figure myself out.
i wasn't the kid that went through "phases" or had to outgrow her past trials and tribulations. i was too much of the trial for their to even be tribulation, so in that, i raised myself to be this mystery.
i was the kid that sat in the back of. class, did my work, and went home.
how does this relate to worthless? the phase i mentioned?
because as a child, i was born by the worthless. the two, "worth" and "less" somehow conjured up the idea that maybe if they had a kid that'd it become something else. that this life wouldn't be made from the solidified sin that they had learned in church.
even now, as my efforts of understanding things beyond me, how did "worth", the person who was worth more than any diamond found in africa or gold hidden somewhere tropical, end up combing her worth with something that was so less?
lesser than the ground i walked beneath, or the amount of fucks i spared back when i actually knew what the fuck a fuck was. but in the end—his less than average expectations of life swayed her because in her eyes she figured he was her way out.
out of this buried sin.
but out of that sin, they made many more.
so in the efforts of understanding this equation, worth + less = the person explaining why it has such a detrimental meaning concerning where she's going to be at twenty years from now.
this hotel has made me think more than ever. it made me think back to my childhood even when i didn't want too. it's efforts of fresh linen and free complimentary breakfast had my thoughts swirling in a synapse daydream whenever i came off the high of the watered down coffee.
when i was seven, we visited an extremely poor town somewhere in the middle of bum-fuck georgia. it's name was something so beautiful that it's a shame i can't remember it but i know the meaning was along the lines of
"anything can be beautiful,"
yet, when i entered this town it was anything but beautiful.
houses were collapsed and caved in. the amount of dirt and caked up smog stuck to the houses in this brown, yucky filth that moved every bowel in my stomach to the middle of my throat. children ran around naked or partially clothed—the parents could only afford either food or clothes. even then getting one or the other wasn't enough.
as i walked around with my tiny hand in my mother's, i couldn't help but feel bad; almost to the verge of tears. these people had nothing and here i was, on this shitty mission trip with all these god fearing fancy church folk. supposedly praying over them and hoping god saved them, but where would the saving help?
"baby," those syrupy sweet harmonies put to words came from my mother as she snatched my attention off of the town and into her soft brown eyes.
"momma, why are we here?"
in that, it's like she knew how fucked up this church shit was. her face glowed under the sunset as we stopped under a broken roof adjacent to what they must've called a liquor store. her cheekbones, high and defined, moved in a tight motion as she mushed her lips side to side before she squat down to my level.
