So this collection of run on sentences is a prose filled journey into the women I know as my "golden girls" and the stories I've collected from them, through lived experiences. Somewhere in here, or perhaps all throughout, you will find me as well. No names are necessary nor faces. These are stories of Black women, abundant and scattered throughout the country and beyond. This is, as Beyonce would say, Act I of this sharing experience. Expect much more from these run on prose pieces.
Thank you for reading.
Lord Jesus is a Black tearless cry, cloaked in feminine tire, disbelief, and impending grief, spoken during long exhales that double as sighs, which triple as conversations with self, prayers to the Lord, our Father God that is, and a beg for immediate resolve to that which has pierced her lungs in so deep that her next breathe could only be established if it began with a pouring of the helpless, tearless sob toward heaven’s request line – Lord Jesus.
I grabbed a fist full of my tears, plucked straight from the upward curl of my lashes where they sat, weighing a ton and a brick, pulling my follicles down towards closure, and I threw them into my palm like a water catcher’s mit, balled up my fingers and held them there tightly until some seeped through the light filled cracks of my tightly closed hand while the rest congregated in the center of one of my life lines until turning into a metaphor that spilled into the streets as if dancing whiskey pouring from a broken Jack Daniel’s bottle is what filled my eyes to begin with.
Heavy Sigh.
I am not an alcoholic, I am an alcove where liquor chooses to find solace and safety, where proof is nowhere near pudding texture and where fish lick the bottoms of the ocean searching for a meal that may or may not affect the people who soon devour it on a dinner plate near a sign that says catch of the day.
I bought a man a car once but he was not my husband, as my husband’s girlfriend was never me, and these wheels would never roll because my niece was behind the driver’s seat as promised to her by my star crossed lover lies that fell into those nights I had her drive me to his driveway where I never parked because God forbid the neighbors knew that we were making fodder of each other while a teen sat waiting to chauffeur my personal book of scarlet letters.
I was once an Ace worth betting Matriarchal wisdom on until that day my Cadillac didn’t know the way home and the doctor told me that i would not live to keep my mind intact, as I know it and as I know things and people that i have grown to love and need so I will play a few more hands of this Dad game with faces that I am promised to forget if they don’t die first and I hope my granddaughter will touch the doorknob with her hand of surprise visit so that I can lock in her my mind one more time before the sun sets on the memory of the baby that sat on my lap and let her first word be, because of me.
I may have lost the biggest parts of me somewhere along the lines of being the sick and who the sick needs because who but me sees the world the way I do and personally, I think it’s a travesty to stick your loved ones on strangers and expect them to off the love and protection that should have been afforded to them based on bloodlines and true relationship but when I fall unable to care for them, I find it nearly impossible to know how to properly care for myself.
I am a pink ribbon, crossed atop itself into a bow that hangs lower on one side like the good breast that Dr Wingspan suggested I let go of and restart fresh with a new set on an old chest and I kindly signed the last name of the divorce that never came and scurried towards the car that would carry me away the same as I came, yet and still, I am as different as the fraternal twins sitting snuggly on one side and loose on the other inside a bra that clasps around my back and leaves scars.
On my knees again, moving sepia palms in short circles to make sure the glass leaves no streaks nor any trace of the hands that went around the room in similar roundabouts, taking dust to resting places far away from dark corners and mowing carpet like picket fenced in yards with perfect lines that turn living room floors into incomplete Connect 4 boards for the pitter patter of adult feet that meet me at the 5 O'clock freshly cleaned door and pay me for my disappearance act.
I grieve through Goodwill transactions while making new friends at registers to inadvertently replace the old faces that beg for my teary eyed attention but I stopped crying back on the dry heat roads of Winona, MS, from which I escaped and upon arrival in the middle land, I made self-promises to never break the bond between the dams in my eyes and the grief I knew I would eventually collect to stand behind them.
The more beautiful I got, the less attractive I became to lustful eyes, colored in basic brown, that used to look at me with salivation dripping from the lashes that protect their facades, and salvation begging from their loins, for a taste of my spring soup, all masqueraded in simplistic compliments that went a little something like “hello beautiful lady”
"the more beautiful I became, the less attractive I got, the further away the cats got called, here, bored, waxed pussy pussy, kitty kitty, pretty in the spirit and as full in the lips, hips, head and heart but the more I realized, the further apart the curiosity, but – at least the cat won’t be killed.
I am a Crown Royal, covered in purple velvet, hiding glass bottles that protect all the secrets I’ve stuffed inside using tiny rolls of paper, feelings written on them with smearing calligraphy that drowns in the proof that suggests everything hiding in this dark cabinet is the best thing I could do to protect the secrets of my inner workings and just how close i am to being the queen of drunk driving again.