Not present at the end when my home becomes a tomb
A seed was planted but never fertilized
All in the meanwhile a piece of me dies
Unaddressed pain and anger leads to an early demise
Ears clogged with lies
A heart filled with juvenile cries
Creating faults to explain your indifference
Searching for answers to the nonspecific
Contemplating a way out through means horrific
Visions of a figure with a face just like mine
That I can’t even begin to recognize
Flashbacks attack my brain unable to breathe
My eyes can’t conceive what my mind tries not to believe
A woman leaves doesn’t look back
A man on his knees, yelling, every other word please
A child too young to understand slips into a sleep
Dreams of an older woman that she longs to meet
Back to a reality of pain
Playing against sadness in a chess game
Checkmate, I won this session
Only to play this game and never learn the real lesson
Not a burden, but a blessing.
Mine read:
A black girl trapped in a white girl’s body? Not sure what that means…but it’s mean. I wonder if Jill was ever accused of being one. Especially since she’s the daughter of a black father and a white mother. I never really thought about how black I am. It was obvious to me that yes, I was indeed black. I’m not blind. But inside I’ve always felt like Me. Nina Parker.
Now that I think about it, A&I must feel the same way. I’m not black enough. Isn’t that why they put me in an all-black high school? Isn’t that why they want me to attend Howard University? Isn’t that why they want me to know poets from the Black Arts movement and read slave narratives?
I miss my friends. I miss Rainhaven. I miss Jill. I miss Amy. I miss Matt. I miss our house. I miss the certainty in my life. Now I don’t know what’s going to happen. Will I make friends? Will I be accepted me for who I am?
This feels like a punishment. For being black? For being white? For being Me?
We sat silently before offering any thoughts. Had I known I’d be exchanging papers with Vivica, I wouldn’t have been so honest. Now I’m vulnerable. So was she.
“That was intense,” I said after a few minutes. “You wrote that in fifteen minutes?”
She nodded. But I really wanted to ask her if she was okay. I wanted to ask her when her mother left. I wanted to ask her how it made her feel. I wanted to ask her if that’s why she acts the way she does. But above everything else, I wanted to know why she takes her frustration out on me.
“Did you have any black friends at Clearview?” Vivica asked. Her tone wasn’t judgmental but curious instead. I was glad she switched the subject.
“Well, no. I mean, kind of. Jill, my best friend, is biracial. But she wasn’t like, black. I mean, I don’t know, that sounds funny. How can I say it? She was just Jill. Neither black or white.”
“It must be horrible to be both black and white,” Vivica said.
“I don’t know. Jill never complained about it. She never felt funny or anything. If she did, she never told me. Sometimes she would tell stories about when she was younger, people would look at her father weirdly when they were out because she’s so much lighter than him. One time a white police officer pulled him over with Jill in the car. The officer thought he kidnapped her. Jill just laughed it off, like she does most things, but I thought that was pretty crazy.”
“I hate people sometimes. They can be so racist.”
I agreed. We didn’t say anything else, but in the silence we said plenty.
During lunch, Nessa returned my poetry book and said that my writing was interesting but lacked feeling.
“I can’t feel your energy in any of them,” she told me. That made sense. Flipping through the notebook, none of them were stellar. I’d have to work on them if I wanted to be serious about being a part of the poetry performance team.
Poetry saved Nessa’s life, she said. “I know people say that a lot, how poetry or hip-hop was their ticket to a better life. But if I wasn’t writing, I think I’d have gone crazy by now. Writing keeps me sane.” I felt Nessa. Now I just needed to feel myself.
“So when you gonna let me give you a makeover?” Sheena asked after we all finished the lasagna that tasted like plastic. “I can see you now, straight hair, new clothes, lookin’ tight.”
“She’s goin’ to need more than new clothes,” Vivica added. “She needs a lesson in being black.” Just like that, she was back to her usual self. Our connection disintegrated in the thick energy of the cafeteria.
“She’s already black. She just needs more flava, that’s all.” Nessa winked at me.
The remainder of our lunch conversation centered around the interest meeting, and thankfully, not me.
CHAPTER 10
There must have been forty kids in the room for the interest meeting. Sheena tagged along to give moral support. About half of the students from my program were there, including Jay and Sister Souljah, who, as she announced to the room, “came to represent for our African ancestors.”
After everyone settled down, Ms. Jimu thanked us for coming and explained her intentions for the club. “Poetry is a powerful form of expression. These days, it takes on many forms, from rap to spoken word. This club will be a place for you to share your poetry, gain feedback, listen to your classmates’ work, and express yourself. We will meet weekly. But we are also forming a poetry team that will compete with other schools and lead our performances. Starting next week we will hold tryouts. There will be three rounds of judging. I, along with Ms. Tony, an eleventh-grade English teacher, and Mr. McAllister, a creative writing teacher, will be the judges, although we will consider the response of the audience to determine the eight members of the squad.”
I think Nessa’s, Vivica’s, and my eyebrows raised at the same time. Only eight members? This was going to be a competitive monster.
Ms. Tony and Mr. McAllister looked like the type of teachers who were overachievers. Went above and beyond the call of duty. They stood with Ms. Jimu and added a few comments about how they couldn’t wait to hear our work.
“Are there any questions?” Ms. Jimu asked.
There were tons of questions. I had a few, too, but didn’t ask them. Should I try out and risk making a fool of myself? What should my first poem be about? Was I even good enough to write poetry?
Before I left with the Big Three, Ms. Jimu told me she was happy to see me at the meeting and that she looked forward to hearing my poetry. More pressure.
A&I were ecstatic to hear that I was trying out for the poetry club. So much so that they pulled out poetry collections from Nikki Giovanni and Gwendolyn Brooks. I remember A&I reading some of the poems before, but now their work resonated with me. I liked the way the two “women warrior poets”—my mother’s words—played with language, explored complex themes with vigor, and said what needed to be said. I wanted that type of strength. I tried to write with motivation, but nothing inspiring came to me.
That night I checked my e-mail, and hoped that Jill had replied with some insight about the black-white girl phenomenon. Was it actually widespread? I didn’t know. There was nothing there from her. I was desperate, so I decided to give her a ring.
“Hey, Jill,” I said.
“Oh, hi, Nina! How are things in Baltimore? How was your first day of school?”
“Miserable.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Did you get my e-mail?” I didn’t want to come out and ask if she thought I was a white girl with a permanent tan.
“No, I didn’t get a chance to check it. These cheerleading tryouts are kicking my butt. I don’t see how Amy does it. I wish you were here so we could suffer together.” She apologized for chewing in my ear. She was eating dinner.
I sighed.
“What did you say in the e-mail?”
“Uh, you’ll see. It’s just so different here. I’m not sure if I’ll fit in.”
“Well, making friends takes time. Have you met anybody yet?” Jill was always so level-headed.
I told her about the Big Three. I told her how they didn’t think I had enough “flava.” But I didn’t say what they meant by that. I told her how Jeffrey made me smile and how I was going to try out for the poetry club. Then finally I asked a question that I’d never had a reason to ask before. “How do you feel to be black and white?”
She released one of her famous laughs, a marriage of uncertainty and genuine amusement.
“Well, it’s like having the best of both worlds, I suppose. I mean, I couldn’t imagine being anything else. Naturally, people tend to have more of a problem with it than I do. It bothers some people that I am not one or the other. But that is their issue, not mine.”
I really missed Jill.
CHAPTER 11
At lunch the next day after admitting that I didn’t know who the rapper Juelz Santana was—Sheena’s pretend babydaddy—a full-blown conversation about hip-hop ensued. I learned from my cousin Sondra that I was the only black teenager who didn’t religiously watch 106 & Park. It was an offense equal to a federal crime.
“What do you know about hip-hop?” Nessa asked, ready to pull out a lesson plan and begin teaching me.
“Do you know who’s hot right now?” Sheena asked. She did an impromptu dance that looked like she was going into labor.
I wanted to say MC Hammer, thinking a little humor might lighten up the serious tone of our lunchtime discussion.
Rainhaven had three radio stations, none of which played hip-hop. But I didn’t live in space, which is the only place that hasn’t been introduced to hip-hop music, so I did know some songs. But A&I thought cable television was the work of the devil, aka corporate brainwashing, so hip-hop didn’t flow in the Parker household.
I was stumped like a contestant on Jeopardy! I didn’t pay attention to who sang or rapped what song. I finally blurted out, “50 Cent.” He was one of Amy’s favorite artists. “He’s so ghetto and gangsta,” she would say, purposefully dropping the “er.”
“Yeah, who else?” Vivica asked. “You probably don’t even listen to hip-hop. You probably listen to heavy metal or some crap like that.” She mocked me.
“I don’t listen to heavy metal,” I said as a futile way to defend myself. I did like rock and roll. Did that automatically make my black card null and void? Jill and I would spend hours listening to her music collection. She was a connoisseur and she had everything: rap, rock, reggae, folk, jazz, classical. If only she was here to bail me out. We didn’t separate the music by black and white; we used great and horrible as classifiers. Was the British group Coldplay really rock and roll? And what about John Mayer? I liked Norah Jones and Christina Aguilera. I shook my backside to Beyoncé in the comfort of Jill’s room. I liked some hip-hop, mainly songs that didn’t glorify violence or disrespect women. But those groups seemed to be few and far between.
“Common. He’s good.” Jill used to play him sometimes.
“Common is not hot,” Vivica said dismissively. “That ain’t the hip-hop we talkin’ about.”
“Common’s hip-hop,” Nessa said in my defense. “Jay-Z once rhymed about wanting to rap like Common, but instead he dumbs down his lyrics to appeal to a bigger audience. I wish he wouldn’t downgrade his brilliance.”
CHAPTER 12
I made it through my first week. Barely. The remainder of the week, Vivica continued making comments about my lack of blackness. Sheena almost got into a fight with a girl who allegedly called her a skank. And Nessa and I bonded over discussions of rappers who are poets. The fleeting rays of light were provided by Jeffrey’s smile and glimmers of sincerity in his eyes. Although all my limbs were still intact, parts of my self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-worth had been crushed.
My weekend was less eventful, and I liked it that way. I helped A&I paint the fourth-floor apartment. I studied for the first evaluation test and slept. My mother asked me why I didn’t study with Vivica. I didn’t have an answer for her. I called Jill and laughed with Amy. I thought about the Big Three and then told myself not to think about them. I studied more and slept more.
I also worked on a new poem. Nessa’s feedback was pretty valuable. But I didn’t know how to put more feeling into my work. I started many drafts only to ball them up and throw them across my bedroom. Then I remembered how emotive Vivica’s poem was. And seeing how much her mother’s decision to leave affected her, I found a renewed respect and love for my own mother. So that’s where I started the poem.
I also added to “How to Be Down”:
Keep your feelings to yourself
Make people feel you (how?)
Don’t put your business on blast
Don’t let anyone disrespect you
Know the hottest rappers
CHAPTER 13
When I arrived at school the morning of the first poetry competition, Sheena and Nessa pushed me into the girls’ bathroom. For a moment, I thought they were going to attack me.
“Here, put this on.” Sheena threw me a black T-shirt that read “Got Dough?”
I did as I was told and turned my back to change. The shirt was snug on my little body. If I had boobs of some size, I would have appeared busty.
Sheena threw a metallic belt around my hips and told me to exchange my penny-sized silver hoops for a pair of large, orange-sized ones. Today her hair was in a short bob but was still blond. I think it was a wig.
They took a step back, looked at me, and nodded their heads in approval. My reflection in the mirror was stronger than I remembered it. My eyes smiled at the subtle changes.
Sheena looked down at my beat-up cross-trainers and frowned.
“Those shoes throw everything off. What size you wear?”
When I replied that I wore a seven, she grabbed a pair of silver ballet flats out of her designer bag. I put them on and complained about them being tight, but Sheena said that’s the price of being cute.
“You carry an extra pair of shoes in your pocketbook?” I asked.
“Yeah, I have to walk four blocks to the bus stop, and when no one’s looking I switch out of my heels into those.” She pointed to my feet.
“That looks better,” Nessa said. Although she wore jeans every day, Nessa had a unique style and I valued her opinion.
“Much better, let’s be out,” Sheena declared.
At lunch, in an act of kindness, while Vivica and I were alone at the table, I asked her how she thought she did on our first test for the college prep program that we had taken that morning.
“It wasn’t too bad,” I said to start the conversation. “I studied hard, though.”
“I guess.” She didn’t look up from the Vibe Vixen magazine she was reading.
“Did you study for it?”
“Nope.” Still no eye contact.
“Did you think it was hard?”
“I didn’t finish,” she announced, like it was no big deal.
“Did you run out of time?” I was concerned.
“Nope.” I felt like an officer trying to pry information from a suspect.
Sheena and Nessa joined us with sick-looking hot dogs on their trays. That was the end of that conversation.
“So today starts round one of the judging for the poetry contest. Y’all nervous?” Nessa asked, although it was obvious that she was something. Hyper could describe her continued hand claps, her jittery movements, and her opened journal. She jumped up, pulled up her baggy jeans, and fixed her T-shirt that in big, orange block letters shouted her MC name, Nessasary.
“I’m a little nervous, but I worked on a new poem all weekend, considering your feedback of my book,” I said. “That was real helpful.”
“I’m glad,” Nessa responded. “Everyone has a voice, you know. It’s just about finding it.”
�
��I ain’t nervous,” Vivica said, cutting me off. “I’m goin’ to rock it.”
“I just hope there goin’ be some cuties there,” Sheena declared as she arranged her bob.
“Are you going to perform the poem about your mother?” I asked Vivica.
Her face wrinkled in anger. We didn’t talk for the remainder of the afternoon.
CHAPTER 14
“Welcome, everyone, to the first round of judging for our performance team. I just want to remind you that anyone can be a part of the poetry club. Our weekly meetings are open to everyone and they will begin next month. Today we are judging for the eight-member team who will perform for Maplewood and compete with other schools.” Ms. Jimu smiled, which made her look like a schoolgirl. Or maybe it was the knee-length plaid skirt and black Mary Jane shoes she was wearing.
Someone yelled out, “A’ight!” It sounded like Jay. The auditorium was half full, so about 150 or so students came out to watch the competition. I looked around at all the black faces and tried to see myself in them so that I wouldn’t be so nervous. And although I didn’t see my face, I felt connected, not so isolated. I began to blend.
First up, Sister Souljah recited a poem filled with garbled pro-black rhetoric. She threw around a lot of “kings,” “queens,” “devils,” and “revolutions.” The crowd didn’t seem to enjoy it. I clapped hard because it took guts to get onstage in front of everyone.
Another girl, who resembled a beaver in designer clothes (I’m not trying to be mean, she really did look like one), performed an ode to Tupac.
Jay did a funny but clever rap about waking up one day as a female. Apparently life wasn’t that easy as a girl. His cleverness and command of language made me understand more why he was in the college prep program.
Another girl with maroon braids performed an angry ditty about her child’s father. Afterward, she was so worked up that Ms. Jimu had to escort her offstage.
Hallway Diaries Page 6
