Vignette 2

Photo CTTO

I am Mariah! Sixteen! Nevada!

On a short vacay, a gift for good grades

Omigawd! I can’t believe that our house

Is ringed with thatched, rickety small dwellings

The roads unpaved, the traffic was awful

The stench was all over, the weather’s hot

I’ve complained that I will die here of rot

Like, my family owned banks and businesses

Land you can see, but what’s it do to me?

We were going to do some sight seeing

Soak up the sun with my fair-skinned cousins

I just wanna hang, I am a teenager!

What’s a girl gonna do with this glitter?

Umm, while the parents were busy shopping,

Or making money, I’m alone. . . again

In a house full of nannies and drivers

And so many rooms, cars, pools and Chanels

‘Nang Kikay, ‘Nong boy’ are my newest kin

Family secrets were better than gin

Bored, I tiptoed out of the house unwatched

I wandered into the street, scared, curious

A POP! A moped with two people rushed

Someone grabbed and pulled me away from them

Moped guys were then followed by mayhem

My young hero was no taller than me

For sure, she sold me flowers at the church

In tattered clothes, no front teeth and slippers

We crouched quietly, far, in the bushes

Her face calm while blood spilled in the trenches

Wuz told that the moped boys were hired guns

By the sly clan who lived in the big house

Her family used to own the land taken

By mine, a land her grandpa plowed till then

They lived in a hovel, fed me crackers

Slept on a cardboard box above damp earth

I snuck back and brought them food and money

It’s the least I’d do for her family

Whatever God! You telling me something?

To go through all these coz it’s destiny?

Um, wait till I tell Mommy and Daddy!

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