say “the beer,” which seemed way cooler than what I really do have to finish stocking—cans of Spam.
“A slam poem? Really?”
His curiousity is disconcerting. No one has ever been particularly interested in anything I do. Except Pono. But he doesn’t count because he only cares about the class council stuff we work on together.
“Yeah…but poems aren’t usually my thing.” I get up, hugging my notebook tight, and seal my lips so that the spontaneous freestyle flowing in my mind stays safely locked away.
Clutching my notebook close to my chest,
as if it’s a question-proof vest.
Boy, you got me stressed
and mentally undressed
with your direct requests.
I’m about to put myself under house arrest
lest you guess I’m
messed up and depressed.
“So, what’s your usual thing?” His attention holds me hostage. I settle back down on the bench.
“Oh, that. It’s kind of classified,” I say, relieved that my dark brown skin hides the blushing.
Mark leans forward. “Come on, Rani, you can tell me.”
Tell him about playing piano, not about the rap! I mean, that’s fully legit. Even if it’s really for Dad.
Mark’s like a male siren. I can’t resist his song. The truth leaks from my lips. I slide my palms under my thighs and study my bright pink toenails. “Rap is kinda my thing,” I confess, avoiding his eyes.
“Rap? Really? Who would’ve thunk?”
I half smile, shifting my eyes back to his glorious face. Then to his robust biceps. Then to the outline of his tight abs through his sweaty, white t-shirt.
“That’s cool. So do you call yourself Lil Rani or something?”
“Something a little more original than that. MC Sutra.”
Seriously, Rani? Shut the hell up!
“You know nothing much surprises me. But this, I never would’ve guessed this about you, Rani. I mean MC Sutra.” He pauses then asks, “You seventeen, yeah?”
“Yeah, just about.” I’m straining to keep my cool. I’m freaked out that he’ll leak my secret about MC Sutra. I end up clasping my hands and begging. “Please Mark, don’t tell anyone about the rap or about MC Sutra. Please, please!”
“I won’t if…” he says real slow, “…if you read me the poem.”
He stretches his arms onto each side of the railing. For a second they appear more sinewy than usual. But then I see something I’ve never noticed before—a dreamcatcher tattoo wrapping around his right upper arm. But before I can ask him about it, he says, “I’m ready.”
I take a deep breath. “It’s called ‘Widow,’” I mumble. I open my notebook and flip to the right page. As I start reading, the anxiety slowly melts away like a half-eaten shave ice in the summer sun. I change up the speed, the volume, and the tone to match the words, pausing strategically along the way. Full on Patricia Smith.
I shaved my head.
Waist length, thick, good Indian hair
gone in five minutes.
Hair shed,
saying the unsaid.
To my mom whose arranged marriage
my dad disparaged,
so daughter became child bride.
He divides
me and her.
He kept me close, his little princess,
his little missus
and witness
to Mom’s “accidents” from
years of banging her head on hard cold walls, numb.
Brandishing knives in desperate suicidal threats.
Rani betta, my little darling, just forget.
Let me comfort you
with teenage back rubs, taboo.
But they help him pull through.
A dark web of emotional and sexual merging,
and I am emerging
as his mirror.
He tries to make things clearer.
He says,
I escaped India,
my mother’s frustrations,
my father’s perversions,
my own victimization
by immigration to America.
A better life was my intention.
But he had no foundation.
So he made me his reincarnation.
Attempts at normal friendships
elicit Dad’s guilt trips
and snubs.
His revenge: psychological break-up.
By him I am now ignored.
His insatiable thirst for being adored
quenched by another, half his age.
At first, rage.
New lover?
New daughter?
Winds of fury
intensify waves of sorrow,
steadily, one after another,
they smother…me.
I’m worthless.
Nothing.
Dead.
Mom’s suicidal frustrations in my head.
I punish myself and shed
hair, self-worth, dignity.
It,
