Fifth Grade, Arizona
Of course it's hot. But hotter even
than I dreamed. Everything changes now,
the slice of life I knew dripped itself into a puddle
that disappears on the pavement. I spend
a lot of time alone. The house is empty of people
but I am given a cat. My new friend's parents
forbid her from my house: it is lawless,
we sit on the roof and we go to the playground
at midnight and no one is there to tell us not to.
In school I am considered very white
and there is a group of Mexican girls
who make a hobby of kicking my ass.
Meet us at the hill. I go, every day, for weeks
to take my beating. They throw me by my long hair.
One day I cry in the bathroom because
I have a knot in my hair larger than a grapefruit.
It's underneath but it begins to show through
the few untangled strands covering it. I cannot
brush it out. The brush is now stuck in the knot
which is stuck in my hair. One of the Mexican girls
rubs my back while I sob. In the long
sepia mirrors we look like friends.
Later in the year I do two amazing things.
I win a spelling bee. And I save a woman's life.
She was on the ground, flailing, pointing to her throat.
Her bike was beside her in the dust.
I ran very fast to the Circle K and soon the ambulance came.
I rode my bike miles to visit her in the hospital.
She promised me all the books I could ever want.
I wrote them down with my address in purple ink.
I never heard from her again.
than I dreamed. Everything changes now,
the slice of life I knew dripped itself into a puddle
that disappears on the pavement. I spend
a lot of time alone. The house is empty of people
but I am given a cat. My new friend's parents
forbid her from my house: it is lawless,
we sit on the roof and we go to the playground
at midnight and no one is there to tell us not to.
In school I am considered very white
and there is a group of Mexican girls
who make a hobby of kicking my ass.
Meet us at the hill. I go, every day, for weeks
to take my beating. They throw me by my long hair.
One day I cry in the bathroom because
I have a knot in my hair larger than a grapefruit.
It's underneath but it begins to show through
the few untangled strands covering it. I cannot
brush it out. The brush is now stuck in the knot
which is stuck in my hair. One of the Mexican girls
rubs my back while I sob. In the long
sepia mirrors we look like friends.
Later in the year I do two amazing things.
I win a spelling bee. And I save a woman's life.
She was on the ground, flailing, pointing to her throat.
Her bike was beside her in the dust.
I ran very fast to the Circle K and soon the ambulance came.
I rode my bike miles to visit her in the hospital.
She promised me all the books I could ever want.
I wrote them down with my address in purple ink.
I never heard from her again.
3 comments:
I love love love this. I know you say it's really rough but I love the way it flows now.
I agree with Zulli--if this is rough enough to skin my knees, I can't even imagine what it will turn into once cleaned.
Also, the woman--is it true?
The line, "... I do two amazing things" is for some reason just really striking, as is the image of the knot. It's just painful and wonderful. Brava.
What a strange period of our lives. Very intriguing! I want more! ... it was so HOT, but like the Arizona T-shirt with the skeleton sitting in his lawn chair, in the desert, with a glass of lemonade said '...but, it's a dry heat'
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