I tell him about peach cobbler and jackets and playing musical chairs because my mom told me she couldn't handle me anymore and she wouldn't hug mebefore she left the hospital aren't jokes and veer dangerously away from indifference.
October 19, 1983, a firing squad led by Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard, machine-gunned Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and members of the New Jewel Movement in the Fort Rupert courtyard. On 25 October, the USA invaded Granada.
We passed through the alleys with our sweat-soaked backpacks, past ten live chickens in a single cage, past animal organs soaking in red vinegar preservatives, past smiling grandmothers sitting on the same stool they’ve sat upon for two hundred years.
I learned early that “rebellious” actions and opinions weren’t welcome. By 1968 when I started church high school, I was indoctrinated with sexual shame, self-examination and repentance, and placing the “domestic sphere”—marriage, homemaking, motherhood—above serious plans for a career.
Being able to spot lie after lie after lie: it’s continual, endless, like being used and craved as someone else’s drug. Every other sentence is now an insult, and the friendship has turned to ash.
The rocks would live on, layers of sand and water gradually inching their way toward the sky long after we had passed through and left this earth for good.
My mother lived in fear of being found, she had to learn a new language and culture; she sacrificed seeing her children grow to give them a better future, but she wasn’t chased and persecuted like a criminal.
I cover my baby up in a torn, fuzzy blanket, I protect from the elements much greater, for us such fanciful specs on the expansive oceans, beneath the ceaseless skies, the wind’s ferocity, I breathe and struggle blanketing my tiny tot.
There’s a peculiarly modern kind of alienation built into losing in a contest deemed by the authorities to be fair. It’s enough to make you think unkind thoughts about whether the people who planned the game...
A lumpy couch squatted in one of the corners. Someone had tossed a thin blanket and a pillow on top of it. Otherwise, the living room was devoid of furniture. Darlene pointed towards the couch. “You three can fight over who gets to sleep there. Otherwise, the floor is available. I’m off to bed.”
