Apr 23, 2017
Phara
Part I: Mama/Sister
Trigger Warning: This short story, fictional work is Part I of VI and will have explicit details about pedophilia/familial child rape, abuse, poverty, and neglect. If this is something you think you should not be reading, please, do not continue. I pitched this to two of my loves and they thought I should pursue it, I am doing that. This thing woke me up out of my sleep a few days before I published my book. It has not let up and I am not resting well because of it. This is someone’s child, I do not know whom, but I got to get this out. For reviewing the concept and supporting my thoughts: Thank you, Alexainie, H. Nemesis Nyx, & for being supportive about something that is causing unrest, walkerjo lee.
What of little girls who have no heart and no shine? Who carries the pain for them when breathing isn’t easy? Where are their Gods? Where are you, God? Nowhere to be found.
Phara was ten when her Daddy laid up with her for what seemed like the thousandth time. He shuffled in one night, late from work, with Seagram’s fresh on his breath as he panted his way down the hall. He never knocked. He always entered without permission. This was true for her door as well as the space between her girl-child legs. The night she knew he had done something worse than the times before, she bled. She bled for two hours before getting up out of the bed, removing her T-Shirt, and crawling the frailness of her body to the bathroom. He was locked and loaded and heavy with the burdens of the world and a job that did not pay much. Her ten-year-old self was what his thirty-two-year-old self craved. There was no escaping the sweaty reality attacking her fragile mind. He took what he wanted. She had no choice but to let him. Little Black Girls don’t speak out of turn.
The night air was stiff. She flashed back to him panting, huffing, puffing, shifting heavily on her tiny frame. She did not utter a word. She screamed “NO”, but she could not hear her voice. Somehow, it got caught between her tongue and the walls whispering prayers to her. She could hear the cars zip by, but the sound of her Mom’s Oldsmobile was not one of them. The water ran strongly, forcing her to hear every drip. Drop. Drip. Drop. The sounds of their two-bedroom apartment seemed strange tonight, different. The floorboards ached as she stepped on them. It seemed as though they knew what she did not. God cried out to her beneath her feet — his child. her soul. she was not alone.
He sleeps it off. He always sleeps it off. The next day, he remembers, but he does not remember. She carries the weight of their nights with her as she walks gingerly to school. An outcast. In their neighborhood, she is the little girl who smells and wears the same clothes at least three times per week. She does not bring lunch, cannot afford to buy it, so she sits by herself during this hour and picks at the leftovers from the plates still clogging the tables of the cafeteria when all of the other children have left. An orange juice box, a half-eaten peanut butter & jelly sandwich, and red, seedless grapes; five of them. She wipes her mouth, raises from the seat, careful not to cause herself anymore pain, and breaks for the little girls’ room.
The Little Girls’ Room. There is quiet. There is peace. There is just her and her shrinking shadow.
Two months pass. She begins spotting. She begins vomiting. She is unsure of what is going on. Her Daddy still visits. Still takes what he can get from her, stripping her childhood with each powerful thrust. He does not notice the changes in her body. He has moved on from Seagram’s and has a constant hankering for Patron. No matter the source, he is still drunk and she is still ten-years-old. A dead soul in a live body, Phara struggles to understand this life. This, lie... Night sweeps in to soothe her and finally, finally, her Mother comes home at a decent hour. She is tired. Her feet ache. Her back is sore. She has worked a double shift at City of Saints Hospital and the last thing she wants or needs is drama.
Hello, Drama. Fresh, with a new face. Ready to destroy life as she knows it.
Phara greets Mama at the door. She is wearing a stressed smile and mutters something quickly, but her mother does not hear her. She attempts the phrase, again, “Mama, don’t leave me here with him, please.” Mama hears her. She is tired, but her ENTIRE body wakes up. She senses disorder. She senses unease. She senses her world slowly about to tumble down and suddenly, the walls of her home are bleeding. They are revealing three hundred twenty-nine days of soiled linens, a crying, voiceless baby, and betrayal. Mama does not look at Phara. She is too consumed with thoughts of what could be to let it all sink in. She pushes her out of the way and charges for the bedroom.
Daddy rises! Heads at attention. Mama takes one look at him, rushes past him, packs seven bags of their things, and says, “Your own child, Bennie! Our Child! You crazy son-of-a-bitch! Our Child!” Tears spill out of her. Her body heaves without her awareness. She is breaking in a way that Mamas are not supposed to break. A small piece of her mind falls out, lands among the tortured floorboards, and buries itself for safekeeping. Phara is watching her run around their bedroom yelling whatever knocks at her heart. Tap. Tap. Tap. She steps away from the madness and shuffles back down the hall. The stench of dysfunction has invited itself into their home at the hand of her blood. She is just a baby. A baby carrying a baby. A Mama. A Sister. Simultaneously.
A Mama/Sister. What an odd thing to be when you do not understand who you are, to begin with.
What of little girls who have no heart and no shine? Who carries the pain for them when breathing isn’t easy? Where are their Gods? Where are you, God? Nowhere to be found.
