Efflorescent Memoirs

1986— I’m so broken.My eyes focus and drift and focus again. I see what’s in front of me, as if it’s really there. I see visions from the womb.
I see me in her. I hear her. I hear the door slam as he comes in and passes the living room. He plays a vinyl. Hendrix. Sits in the chair and as she walks by to get him a drink, he grabs her and starts to tongue her neck. Her lips find their way to his ear and she whispers, “I’m pregnant.” “What?” Still kissing her. “I’m four months pregnant, Frankie.” He slides his freshly manicured hand through his silk spun black hair, steps back, and asks, “How?” She looks down at me, then back up at him. “You know how.”
I can hear him. I want him to hold me through her dark brown belly but instead, in his strong Dominican accent, he tells her, “I don’t want a Black baby.”
She stops speaking. Mommy don’t know I can hear her thoughts. They’re racing through her veins from her brain to my ears, screaming at me. Saying everything she won’t say out loud. It’s sca…

Penn State for a keynote lecture this weekend. Feeling like a true erudite who likes a good selfie as much as she likes a good book. Every time I speak at a college, I remember when Nikki Giovanni and Sister Souljah spoke at my HBCU. 
I wanted to be them.
A dream manifested.

The bell rang. I was sitting at my desk. A rarity. I made them stay an extra ten minutes to finish their exams. One by one, they each began to submit their papers. The room was empty, save for her and a red-head boy named T.

He was so fixed on finishing that he didn’t notice what was happening. Her face scrunched up, as if she wanted it to sink all the way in, leaving nothing but her brown skin— no features, no expression, no mouth to tell what happened, no eyes to cry out. 
But I could still see her face: hardened by the world. 
“What’s wrong, baby girl?”
She took out her phone, put it near her ear and waited for the person on the receiving end...
“Where’s mommy?  Nothing... where’s mommy? Can you tell her call me back? Nothing. Nothing. Bye.”
She hung up. Still letting her tears paint her face. 
“What’s wrong?” “Nothing, Ms. Clay.” “You want to write about it?” I knew she would say no. She wasn’t a writer. She was always quiet. With a newfound affinity for reading “street novels.” Her attendance…

what if i be myself? what if i let the world see more than my classroom? even more than my pain? what if they find out what I love? who I love? what if I start dancing more? what if cursed in my writing the way I do in real life? what if they knew why me and my ex didn’t work out? what if they asked me about my early twenties? what if i stopped being a robot? what if i never lost my mind? what if i never lived in Cuba? what if i never moved back to baltimore? what if i stop teaching and go to Harvard or Stanford? what if buy a ticket to India and never come back? what if i sit at my easel and paint all day and write all night? what if I open a bookstore? what if i never read the alchemist? what if ash never put me on to abraham hicks? what if i never went to Malibu with dave? what if never hear music again? what if couldn’t see flowers in full bloom? what if Alex never published words from a wanderer? what if I wasn’t me? what if I knew how to speak French? what if I never read bell h…