junior high had a little abacus for counting our pigsties so what could i do? recess sometimes smelled like luster’s pink or gallon flasks of chlorine. our dodge ball teams were light skin girls with lip stains v.s. dark skin girls with devices to mute their worlds. ruby woo kisses, john hancock for the yearbook. 9th street’s catcalls missed with thumbs to eardrums, rollerblading past the new hood’s whole foods. in junior high what team was i? sapphire my dire mascot, februaries licking the cute sayings off sweet- hearts, cornell notes on the bus boycott dropping out the down south of a brown bag lunch; claudette colvin, my unsung noon hunger. losing ansisters made me mad. mad had me up in oreo arms, pour of clorox stoppered in pecola eyes or windpipe. then sixteen— year for prom, p.s.a.t., that men’s club, the ebonies, where i knew what to do.
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