Land of the Broken Hearted

I was born in the land of the broken hearted. The destroyed and the hurt. Where childhood only refers to size, not maturity, not requirement to fend for self, to survive.

I was born in the land of the destroyed. Where fathers were a rarity, an urban myth, a rarely spotted phenom. Where mama's had more than one baby by more than one man, but no man was accountable to any of them. In 1st grade Tiffany told me the basic rule - her wise eyes arched, her finger pointed in my face, she clarified my mistatement. "Uh uh, you wrong." She said when I told her that her mother's baby wasn't her brother. "He is my baby brother. Cuz we got the same mama. Daddy's dont' matter." With a bob of her ponytail, the finality in her rolled neck she defined my reality, an explanation I accepted without doubt. But her rule didn't count. I met my own brother when I was 10 or 11. I never knew he existed. But he was my father's son. what did that mean? did that count? I wanted to find Tiffany, to demand an explanation. instead he and I stared at each other. And my father bragged about having a son. I looked at my hands and wondered why God had given me this bizrre life. But my brother has been kinder to me than any other male relative I have...

I am from the land of the broken hearted. I knew my father didn't like me, but I loved him so much. He didn't smile at me when he talked. he called my mother a bitch. He said we were trying to take all his money, yet he never paid a dime of child support. I knew, because I was always being dragged to court about it. He stared at me. For minutes at a time. With no expression. Sometimes, he was nice. A minute or so. Then he would sigh deeply, frown at something that came out of my mouth. I prayed over lunch. He asked what did a prayer mean if Jesus was busy. I said Jesus is never busy, my voice shaking. Scared. "What if he is taking a shit?" he asked, laughing loudly, cigarette in his hand. My eyes filled with tears. I was so young then - 7 or 8? His girlfriends daughter, who was Jewish, tapped my knee and shook her head. When she was around, she protected me. I hated him. But I wanted him to want me. Maybe if I was cuter. Maybe if I was smarter. Skinnier. Lighter skinned. What did I need to do, who did I need to be, for him to want me? When I was six he promised to take me out for my birthday. I told him the date, because to this day, he never bothered to remember it. I got dressed, ignored my mothers request that we do something else. I was waiting for my daddy. And I waited. and waited. and waited. and the day, like so many, came and went. When I was 12 he showed up at the door. We went for a ride. Over lunch he picked up my arm. "You shooting drugs?" he asked. What? I shook my head no, removing my arm and ending his search for drug tracks. "You fuckin yet?" he continued. I stared at my food, that heavy lump just before tears, forming in the pit of my stomach. But life had taught me not to cry. "No." "You need to get some pills, just in case your fucking." his eyes locked onto mine, holding them for minutes until I tore mine away and stared at the food on my plate. "What size bra you wear?" he asked. "You got an underwire?"
I remained silent until he took me home. "The next time I see you Im putting you on the pill." he announced. My mother finally pleaded with the court to end my mandatory visits. We lost.

I am from the land of the troubled soul. Where so many children have been disappointed. Let down. hurt and betrayed. Raising themselves. Fending for themselves. My friend got pregnant when I was 11. She didn't tell me at first. I didn't find out until she was sick in the bathroom at school. Me and a lesbian girl whose name now escapes me stood there watching her throw up, our lesbian homey smokin a joint. "Look at that shit." She said, smacking her lips, her jherri curl shaking. She thought my friend was pathetic. She got suspended a month later for havin sex with a girl in a bathroom stall. Then she was expelled a few months later for doing it again, getting caught performing cunnilingus in that same bathroom and they found her marijuana in her pockets. Her ass was always in that damn bathroom. Anyway, I rubbed my friends back while she was sick. I knew then. But she didn't talk about it. Three days later she returned to school and it was done. She was pregnant again a year later.

I am from the land of confusion. Where girls beat up girls because a boy thought she was cute. Where you had damned well better know how to fight, or your ass was doomed. Where keeping a small tube of Vaseline on you was a must so a girls fingernails couldn't scratch up your face while you clawed at each other for no good reason, other than " I heard you said..." Where you better know that if you ever got jumped, you grabbed one girl and whipped her ass instead of trying to fight them all. You hold onto that one bitch to the death if possible, the others will back off if there homegirl is gettin her ass whipped. Don't try to fight them all. This is a tried and true lesson. In middle school a gang of girls promised to whip my ass. I didn't know why. I was in honors classes, trying hard to hide the fact that I was smart. Wanting so desperately to fit in. She pointed her finger in my face, a highschool girl, and declared. "I don't like your smart ass." I was scared. I didn't admit it. "Fuck you," I spit back, praying for help. "I will get your ass at the bus." she shouted. I walked through the day in a daze. By 8th period my cousin appeared. family. the only thing that could save me. " You ok?" she asked. Hell no. I thought. But I nodded, tears in my eyes. I was prepared to die. "Naw, I got this." She shook her head to her friend, they disappeared. The entire thing went away. I love my cousin. Erica. My father's people.

I am from the land of craziness. My first friend was killed when I was 11. Stabbed. Three more friends conceived and killed three more babies over the next two years. My girlfriend kept her baby when we were thirteen. And so it began. The star basketball player, was shot in the head playing craps over 5 dollars. On and on. By ninth grade death was just a constant. We weren't shocked at death, just hurt that the person had been taken from us. Friends lost to us, gone, and we were just children. But children don't know they are children. We were little people, old souls. Hardened souls. hurt and moving on. simply moving on.

I am from the land of the lost. My first drug dealing boyfriend didn't start out that way. He didn't get hardcore, didn't start slinging, until after 8th grade. It was one of two paths. Drug dealer, athlete. little boys playing men. Little boys trying to attain what there parents can never give them working fireman shift at Kodak. He kissed me behind the door in the basement of the school. We had 5 minutes until the bus. Every day. he would kiss and rub and whisper to me behind that door. Every day for two months. I was in love. He would hold my hand, try to make me miss my bus. But I wasn't ready for that. Wasn't ready for what that would mean. After two months, it faded. He looked the other way. I looked the other way. we pretended not to see each other. My heart hurt. I hated him. I loved him. I hated him. We would play that game for years.

My second drug dealing man was Puerto Rican. You wouldn't know, to look at him, but he was. He and my homegirl Kisha were my first lesson that there are black Puerto Rican's. It would take another 20 years for me to realize that there are black Every Nationalities. He was also way too much for me. I could flirt, smile and play along, but papi was ready for things I knew nothing about. He would say things that would have me ready to drop my panties and get it on. I never had such a rush of emotion, of excitement, by a simple word or promise, whispered in English or Spanish. One day the kiss was too deep, I lost myself too much. After that kiss, perfectly pressed touch and tongue flick, I ran from his ass. Avoided him like the plague. He smiled whenever he saw me, though. A slow alluring smile that thrilled and scared me. He woulda turned me out and I knew it.

My third drug dealing boyfriend carried guns. One in a holster on each side. I loved it. Would run my hands along the steel, feeling powerful, feeling like I was with a man. My father had the same affinity for guns, the same holster. I didn't notice the connection until I was grown. he was older. I was much too naive. He protected me. Until his girlfriend called me, busted him and shattered my world. The first time I openly cried over a boy. Damn sure not the last. he and I had driven along the river, parked in the car and talked. Whispered and kissed. He liked that I was smart, was different. I wanted him to go to college with me. After the big falling out he came to my house. Told me I deserved more. Told me that he wanted to look me in my face and apologize. That I was special. That he was sorry. He held me close and kissed my forehead before he left. I never saw him again.

I am from the land of pathetic. My girlfriend and I party hopped all summer. We went to the east side, where brothas were wilder and shit went down. But it was more boys over there, so thats where we had to be. The lights were off in this house party, I only knew two people there. Within minutes the a boy had yanked me into the living room, the "dance floor", grinding and swaying with the music. He was Jamaican. Damn near every boy in the house was. He had a beer in his one hand, that ganja in the other. The lights were low, the DJ's speaker was behind me. I was deafened by the music, feeling the deep baseline travel through me, it was dark, and I was having a great time. I was the only one, probably in the entire house, who hadn't been drinking. That was the difference, I guess. I always dibbled and dabbled in the life, but never fully committed. Only pretended. The great pretender. Gun shots rang out, we all hit the floor. Two brothas started fighting, someone popped another shot. A few more yells and someone pushed the guys out of the house. Someone threatened to call the police. The ruckus died down, the music started back up, and we were back to the smooth grind to the mellow groove. Several songs later the front of my silk shirt (yes, silk - it was 1991) felt damp. The party was hot, I moved to the kitchen to cool down. My girlfriend came with me, found the light and flicked it on. She stared at me before screaming. "Your shot!" "What?" I felt around for the bullet wound. "No, I'm not." "Yes, yes you are there's blood all over you." I unbuttoned the blouse, examining my torso. The blood that soaked my shirt wasn't mine. Jamaica mannnnn..... I bumped my way back into the living room, buttoning my shirt and looking for my dance partner. I found him leaning against the wall, a smile on his face. "You return, eh." Shaking my head, my girlfriend and I pulled him back through the crowd, into the kitchen, into the light. His smile grew. Nasty self. Then he spotted the blood on my shirt. The street instinct in him immediately calculated, through his high drunken haze, and he gazed down at his own torso - the bloody white t-shirt bearing the small bullet hole. He shouted, I grabbed his homeboy outta the crowd. "Shit," he yelled over and over "I cant go to no hospital man." Another guy appeared. They put his arms over each shoulder and rushed him from the house. I lost my appetite for partying and sat on the steps next to the DJ until my friend was ready to go.

I am not of this land: I try not to judge. People who haven't lived in it don't seem to understand it. My first month of college, I hated it. I hated it and them. Everyone of them. So many people living these normal huxtable lives, lives that me and mine had never known. I hated them because I didn't know that there was peace. I didn't know that people had suburban normalcy, two parent families and restated love. Not black folks. I hated them because I thought about all my folks, my friends, who never even had an opportunity, who couldn't even dream of this other world that seemed like an expectation for these people. Their normal was not only my abnormal, but my first realization that I had been locked out from the standard. By my very birth, I had been locked out. But, despite my resistance, they were kind too me. patient to me. and I grew. and my hate dissolved into confusion, melting away the hardened surface of my hurt, allowing me to really see, to envision, to dream and, more importantly, to breathe. For the first time. and I accepted a different life.

I am from the land of the depressed. Where quiet and loneliness plagued our small home, made a mother the enemy of her only child. The only person the child could turn to. Without the depression she was kind, patient, young feeling. I remember being sure I had to protect her. Removing the bottle in the middle of the night, throwing it away, tossing it out. Drifting around the house alone on the weekends, hoping she asn't dead, although there was not breath and she lay awkwardly on the bed. Terror was a constant feeling. The middle years were better. Prozac helped quiet her. But highschool was hell at home. Children are the best hiders of pain. The most social kid at school can be the quietest, most abused child. You would never know. I was the master at disguise.Again, the great pretender. home was best when I was alone. Peaceful. When she came home, I went upstairs. I disappeared. I hid. I slept with a knife under my pillow after she attacked me in the night. Kicked in my door, hurling cusses at me and throwing shit. It occurred to me then, when I was 14, that she was capable of killing me. And since noone knew how she was behind closed doors, noone would ever know the truth. So I started sleeping with knives under my pillow. So I would always have protection in case of her middle of the nights screams. God as my witness, after I kep the knife, she never again attacked me in the night. And she knew nothing of the knife, because I was forced to pull it out when I was 17, the night she tried to throw me out then refused to let me leave. Always dramatic bullshit. I was so sick of it. And she was speechless. During those times I was an ugly bitch. That's what she called me. a fat bitch. worthless bitch. fill in the blank___ bitch. Each time it hurt, but a little less. stupid bitch. selfish bitch. ain't never gonna be shit bitch. One night I went to the hairdresser. Came home to change clothes. The goal was to stay out of the house and away from her. My first time wearing my hair in a loose wrap. She smiled, an evil grin. "you look like an ant" she laughed. I ignored her. "I can't believe you would walk out of the house like that. you are so ugly." I kept walking, but then I looked at her. I wanted to spit on her. Or say something painful. But I knew that she was capable of some evil shit, some shit I couldn't prepare for. And, out of the two of us, I was the one who would be hurt. I knew that. So I just turned around and walked away. "You ugly bitch," she said to my back.

I am from the land of the broken hearted. Daily, I have escaped. Looking over my shoulder, waiting for my past to come back and claim me. Slam me back into my proper place, my real role. Out me, expose me, display my insecurities and fears, show my weakness and faults. Make me that little lost girl that I was, the lonely little girl in me. How can it be explained or described. It exists, and I lived in it for the first 18 years of life. The land of the broken hearted.