by Nikki Grimes
Last week, I wore my patchwork denim skirt and vest with the red leather pockets that just about broke my sewing machine needle. Sheila was all up in my face, telling me how cool I looked, like I needed her opinion. Why she’s always trying to kiss up to Black people is beyond me. Anyway, it was Lupe’s compliment I listened to. She took one look at my outfit and told me she was jealous. Said she wished she could sew like me. Honey, I thought to myself, give me some of that pretty skin and hair of yours, and I’ll trade.
Lupe has no idea how pretty she is. You should see Raul and some of the other guys—Black and white—sniffing round her. And does she notice? Don’t look like it to me. Except for Raul. It’s hard not to notice Mr. Latin Loverboy. Anyway, Lupe says she already has a boyfriend. I’m thinking he’s invisible, though. I never see him. He goes to another school, she says. Others say he doesn’t go to school at all, that he dropped out a long time ago, that he’s eight years older than Lupe. Eight years! But hey, it’s none of my business. At least she’s got somebody. I’m still working on that one. Meanwhile, I spend my weekends alone, holed up in a room with my Singer sewing machine.
I’ve been helping Mom mark and cut out patterns for as long as I can remember. I even helped her draw a few that Vogue never thought of. They should take a look at my sketch pad! Now, if I could just figure out how to design poetry as well as I design clothing, I could turn myself into somebody special. Wouldn’t that be a neat trick?
It wouldn’t hurt if I could come up with something deep to write about, like Chankara. I wouldn’t want to have the experience of someone beating up on me, though. It’s bad enough my stepfather talks about me like a dog. The few times my mother gets on him about it, he laughs it off and says he’s just joking. I should cut his tongue out, see how funny he thinks that is, ’cause there’s sure nothing funny about being called ugly. So why does Mom let him do it? Sometimes I think she loves him more than me. Otherwise, she wouldn’t let him tear me down like that.
One of these days, he’s going to call me ugly, and I’m going to ugly myself on outta there. I don’t know where I’ll go, but it’ll be far away from him. Then Mom won’t have to worry about defending me. And I won’t have to waste energy being angry because she hardly ever does.
She’s all right in private, though. She tells me to ignore my stepfather, says I’ve got a lot to work with, that I can make myself over with hair and makeup. When I’m older. For now, I can barely get out of the house with lipstick. Meanwhile, I sit at my sewing machine and dream about the great transformation I’m going to make someday. As if I could use pinking shears to cut out a new face for myself.
Right. Dream on.
OPEN MIKE
Cocoon
BY JUDIANNE ALEXANDER
Her cocoon is see-through.
Inside, she is busy
with pattern and pinking shears.
If the ears are too long,
she’ll snip them.
If the mouth is too wide,
she’ll stitch up the corners.
Her needle and thread
hold more magic
than any wand.
With her chalk,
she can outline
a fine and voluptuous shape.
The nape of the neck
is a perfect place
to tuck and fold.
Her straight pins hold
the skin together, just so.
A quick basting stitch
lets her know where
to set her seams,
her cuffs, her hem.
After all, her arms and legs
mustn’t be too long.
She mustn’t stand too tall
Perfect beauty is what
she’s after.
She’s already had enough
laughter in her life.
The day she clips her way
out of her cocoon,
the only sound
she plans to hear
is a deafening cheer.
Tyrone
Don’t none of these girls like the way they look? I don’t get it. Guys don’t have that problem. Not the guys I know. Would somebody clue me in?
Lupe
Judianne tapped me on the shoulder this morning and passed me a note real quick before Mr. Ward could see. It was from Leslie. “Are you okay?” it said. I turned and flashed her my “okay” smile. The smile was for real. I’m fine today. Pero, last night? Forget it. I broke up with Marco and I was a mess.
It was so silly. I been planning to break up with him for weeks. I mean, I hardly ever seen him any-ways. Plus, I’ve been thinking, if I’m ever going to have a baby, I need to find a better father than Marco, somebody who’s got time for me, at least. I don’t want my baby and me to be alone, like Gloria and Angel. She got it harder than I thought. Still, I wasn’t in no hurry to break up with Marco, because that would make it official: Lupe Algarin is alone. I can’t hardly breathe thinking about it.
I busted up with Marco over the phone, which is good because, right after I hung up, I felt this big hole rip open inside of me, and I started crying like little Rosa does when she’s hungry and her bottle is empty and her mom has just left the room. Once I calmed down, I called Leslie. But as soon as I heard her voice, the tears started coming again.
“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to hide my sniffles. “I shouldn’t have called.”
“Lupe, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to bother you.”
“You’re not bothering me. Anyway, that’s what friends are for. Now, what happened?”
I told her about Marco, and how I left him, and how he didn’t even seem to care that much, and how I was all alone now. She was quiet for a minute. Then she said, “Lupe, sounds to me like you were already alone.”
“I know, but—”
“Never mind. It’s okay. You’re not really alone, anyhow. You have friends. You have me.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
Leslie said she feels lonely sometimes too. She told me about how it was right after her mom died. I really listened because she doesn’t talk about her mother much. She said that after the funeral, and even months after she moved in with her grandmother, her world felt so empty and hollow, she could hold it at one end and ring it like a bell. It’s better now, she said.
We must’ve talked for an hour. I can’t remember half of what we talked about, except that Leslie said friends can be like familia. Only she pronounced it fama-lea. It took me a minute to figure out what she meant. Anyway, she was right.
So I don’t have a boyfriend now. So what? Neither does Janelle. Or Gloria. Or Leslie. But we have each other.
Maybe we can all be alone together.
OPEN MIKE
El Noche
BY LUPE ALGARIN
I stand out in the cold
el noche and I
both too lonely for whispers.
Only the wind
shatters this silence.
I have been here before
choking in solitude,
but this time
when all the earth
is hollow as a bell,
I hold one end,
ring it,
and you come—
a pale-skinned surprise,
a friend.
Tyrone
Her voice is so soft, I close my eyes every time she reads, trying to hold in the sound a little longer. I’m glad Mr. Ward asked her to read her piece over again. She says it like a whisper, but it’s powerful stuff. That’s one thing these ladies know how to do. Be soft and strong at the same time. Like my moms.
Janelle
Tyrone said something to me today, but I didn’t hear him. I’m having trouble getting Judianne’s poem out of my head. Even Lupe said it was a surprise. We all thought Miss Fifth Avenue was self-confidence with a capital S, but her poem was all about wishing she could make herself over. I know what that’s like. Which is what I tried telling Judianne the other day. Boy
, was that a mistake!
I ran into her in the bathroom. That seems to be our place to meet. Anyway, I decided to take advantage of the meeting.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you, I really liked the poem you read for Open Mike Friday.”
“Yeah? Well, thanks. I’m not used to writing poetry.”
“Well, nobody could tell it. You know, I could really get into what you were saying about trying to make yourself over, wishing you could be perfect and all. I mean, I feel like that every time I look in the mirror.”
Judianne nodded, and her tight mouth softened a little. She was about to say something, but then a toilet flushed and she realized we were not alone. Sheila Gamberoni came out of the stall, and the minute she did, Judianne slipped back behind her usual scowl and turned mean.
“Look, I am nothing like you, okay?” she spit out. “In case you haven’t noticed, you’re fat and I’m not. And you’re wrong about my poem. It was just words. It didn’t mean anything. You got that?” And she slammed out of the bathroom and left me there, stinging from the inside out.
I bit my lip to keep the tears back. I turned the faucet on and washed my hands a few times, staring at the sink until I heard Sheila step out into the hall. I glanced up at the mirror before I left. “You’re wrong, Judianne,” I said to the mirror. “They weren’t just words, and you know it.”
I haven’t tried talking with her since. I don’t want to give her an excuse to be mean to me again. I’m not mad at her, though. I know there’s a part of her that’s as scared to look in the mirror as I am. I saw that person for a few seconds, even if she wants to deny it. Calling me names won’t change the way she feels inside. One of these days, she’s going to find that out.
OPEN MIKE
Mirror, Mirror
BY JANELLE BATTLE
Sisters under the skin,
we meet in the mirror,
our images superimposed
for one split second.
Ready or not,
I peer into your soul
and dive deep,
splash-landing
in a pool of pain
as salty and familiar
as the tears on my cheek.
Your eyes don’t like
what I see.
You don’t want to be me.
So you curse
and smash the mirror,
which gets you what?
A bit of blood,
a handful of glass splinters,
another source of pain.
Tyrone
Mm, mm, mm. Janelle is working it. Seems like her pieces are getting tighter. Actually, I think everybody’s getting better. Practice makes perfect, I guess, and we be getting plenty of practice these days. Mr. Ward had to switch Open Mike from once a month to once a week ’cause so many people be wanting to read their work.
I b’lieve there’s more to this thing than Mr. Ward planned on. But he’s cool. He keeps rolling with it.
Tanisha Scott
If Tyrone calls me “caramel cutie” one more time, I’ll scream. I turn to cut my eyes at him and find Judianne staring at me again. Even after I turn away, I can feel her eyes stroking the back of my head. I’m so sick of people making a big deal over my “good hair.”
I caught her pawing my hair just last week. I reached back and grabbed a finger before she had a chance to pull away. I spun around, more aggravated than angry, and said, “Look, it’s just hair. It’s not magic, so don’t go rubbing it for good luck. Trust me, it hasn’t brought me any.” Raynard stifled a laugh. You never know when that boy is paying attention. Of course, Judianne made out like she didn’t know what I was talking about, swearing up and down she hadn’t touched a single hair on my head. But I’d seen that hungry look in her eyes, like I had something she wanted. It was the same look my cousin Faith always gives me just before she says “I sure wish I had good hair like yours” or “I wish I was light like you,” followed by “then boys would like me better ” Which isn’t true, if you ask me. But try telling that to my cousin. Or to Judianne. If she doesn’t quit bugging me, I’m gonna ask Mr. Ward to change my seat.
She’s why I chopped all my hair off last year. Well, people like her.
My mother freaked when she saw me. My bangs were cut straight across my brow and the sides were sort of squared at the neck. I looked like a clown minus the red nose. It was the best I could do on my own. And it looked better than that time I washed it in detergent to kink it up so I could have an Afro like my cousins. Anyway, Mom hated it so much, she finally forked over money for a visit to a hair salon to have it cut professionally.
Served her right. I’d begged her to let me cut it off before. “But your hair is so beautiful,” she’d say. “Why would you want to cut it?”
My mind flashed to the school cafeteria that afternoon. I’d walked past a group of would-be girlfriends who sucked their teeth at me and said my name like it was curdled milk they couldn’t wait to spit out. “Here come Miss High-Yella, thinkin’ she’s all that, with her so-called ‘good hair,’ ” said one. “Far’s I’m concerned, she ain’t nothin‘,” said another. “Less than nothin’,” said a third. I shook off the memory.
“Look, Mom,” I said. “You don’t understand.” But she wasn’t listening.
“Most girls you know would kill to have your hair,” she said.
“That’s just it, Mom. They hate me for it and they hate my skin. I can’t do anything about my skin, okay, but my hair I can fix.” I lost the argument, of course. Then, three weeks later, I cut it anyway.
It’s growing back now and I’ve decided to let it. I mean, it’s not like I can win, you know? I’ve tried dressing down in T-shirts and baggy pants, with no makeup, and it’s still either “Come here, pretty mama” from cocky boys like Wesley who I have absolutely no use for, or getting grief from girls I used to want as friends. I even thought about getting brown contact lenses once, to cover up my green eyes, but my friend Sterling talked me out of it. He’s light-skinned too, so he knows where I’m coming from. He said he used to twist himself into a pretzel over it until he realized God loves him just the way he is. Besides, he told me, if I did start wearing colored contacts, those girls would only say I was trying to be something I’m not, and he’s right. So I give up. Let ’em say what they want. I am not a skin color or a hank of wavy hair. I am a person, and if they don’t get that, it’s their problem, not mine.
I’m better off with friends like Diondra and Janelle who know I’m more than what I look like. They know I’ve got a brain, and I know how to use it. They’re no dummies either. That’s why I asked Mr. Ward if the three of us could do a group project on Women of the Harlem Renaissance for extra credit. We had our first meeting at my house.
“Can we do Zora Neale Hurston?” asked Janelle. “I know we read Their Eyes Were Watching God in class, but she wrote a bunch of other stuff too.”
“You’re right,” I said. “Good idea.” I picked up my pad and wrote Z. Hurston at the top. “Okay. That’s a good start, but I think we should cover some women you don’t hear so much about.”
“Like?”
“Georgia Douglas Johnson. I read some of her work in a book called 3000 Years of Black Poetry. I’d never heard of her before, and I bet nobody else in class has either.”
“Cool,” said Diondra. “Maybe I should read that book and see if I can get a couple of ideas.”
“You can borrow it from the library,” I said. “Soon as I return it, that is.” We all laughed. I’m notorious for turning library books in late. “Meanwhile, Diondra, you can start working on portraits of these sisters so we can use them for our report covers when we’re done.”
I didn’t wait for her to volunteer, because I knew she wouldn’t. For somebody who has talent, she spends an awful lot of energy hiding it. But I figure if enough people tell her she’s good, she’ll start believing it. That means people actually have to see her work. I’m going to make sure they do, even if I have to keep
volunteering her for projects ’til we graduate. She’s not about to say no to me. She knows I’m stubborn when I want something.
“Fine,” says Diondra. “I’ll do the portraits, but don’t look at me when Mr. Ward sees those report covers and busts out laughing.”
“Laughing? What do you mean, laughing?” Janelle and I looked at each other. I nodded, and on the count of three, we jumped on Diondra and tickled her ’til tears of laughter squirted out of her eyes.
Them’s my girls. They don’t care what I look like. They know the only difference between my color and theirs is that the slave master who owned my family raped my great-great-grandma instead of theirs. And like my dad says, that ain’t nothing to celebrate or be stuck up about.
OPEN MIKE
For the Record
BY TANISHA SCOTT
It’s the blood that tells:
slaves black as Mississippi mud
ring the trunk
of my family tree.
They speak through me
Black as they want to be.
The slaver’s white drop
couldn’t stop the spread
of African cells.
They’re bred
in the bone,
past the slick hair,
the too-fair skin.
So don’t tell me
I can’t fit in.
My heart beats
like a talking drum,
my mom hums to Bessie
just like yours,
the brothers in my dreams
are pure ebony,
and blue-black grandmother arms
like the ones
that cradled my ancestors
have often cradled me.
Tyrone
Now I know why the sista hisses every time I call her “caramel cutie.” That’d be the last thing she wants to hear! She’s proud of her African self, and I’m down with that. That’s why I be wearing my kufi every chance I get.