As Bill Withers plays in the background about grandma’s hands, I look down at my own. I have my grandmother’s hands. They are small with fat fingers. I once was told they looked like Vienna sausages. I simply laughed and said, “No
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Daddy straddled the heap of toys that lived on the floor of our playroom in Brentwood, Long Island. Tiny plastic arms splintered out as though bidding for a chance to accompany me to Becky Carrigan’s* sleepover that night. Daddy sifted unceremoniously through
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Clumps of wrinkled, white flesh hang from grandmother’s face and pool in the nape of her neck like turkey waddle. Her eyelids flutter but never quite open. I stroke her left hand, liver-spotted and marked with bluish-green bruises from the IVs. She
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“Sit still.” I braced myself for the familiar sting of the plastic comb against some vulnerably-exposed area of my head, neck or shoulders. A few seconds passed and I slowly opened my clenched fists and eyes, relaxed my hunched shoulders, and tried
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My nails kept time on the arm of the chaise to the ticking of the wall clock. I looked at her blankly, no answer to her question. She repeated it. “Do you want another baby more than the life you have with
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I hope tomorrow will bring a better you, better me I know that we’ll show this world we got more we could be Tevin Campbell’s soft, pubescent voice hummed through the radio. I hesitated to listen. On that day, I just didn’t
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I am the only girl in my family. When I say ‘only’ I do not mean that there aren’t any women anywhere else in my bloodline, that would be biologically and spiritually impossible. In fact, the generation before mine was built by
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Has it happened to you? Maybe you’re scrolling through Twitter searching… no, damn near begging for a meme of happiness… then BOOM! Under your thumb is a video of some racist cop assaulting a Black person for a reason as small as
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A typical Sunday morning as a millennial five-year-old Black girl may have gone like this: She awakens. She needs to go to the bathroom, but if her mom sees her, she may be sent back immediately to get dressed for church. So
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Every Friday night I come home from work, change my clothes and I flop down on the couch. In my head, I have other plans. Maybe clean the house. Maybe sit at the computer and write. Maybe finish reading the book I
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The alarm pings and the piercing sound reverberates through the walls. My eyes blur to make out that it’s 6:00 am. I slam on the snooze button, praying for just five more minutes. I’ve woken up in a tangle of curls and
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My journey to motherhood has at once been a step forward into uncharted territory and a step back into an almost forgotten vulnerability. I am Black, Queer, Woman. My journey to the point where I could harmoniously claim these aspects of my
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My daughter is black. Skin like turned earth. Eyes the color of midnight. A black freckle on the underside of her wrist matches mine and another just to the left of her smile. This land does not make space for her so
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They built a church on the land where my body was broken. Parishioners come every Sunday morning believing it to be holy ground. Yet I know this to be the ground where my soul was desecrated one Thursday evening. Prior to being
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