Sometimes I pull out a really old journal, and carry it around and read it like a book. I wrote this over a decade ago..it's about Ma Grover.

It's 1986.
the music is cued...
It's Micheal Jackson's Thriller.
Keisha's in the corner..waiting..trying to hide her teeth as she giggles but I can't see her anyway because I'm laying on the floor- arms crossed over my chest-eyelids pulled down in my best rest-in-peace expression and we are both waiting for Vincent Price to start in.
When he does I rise up from my shag carpet grave with arms out rigor mortis..eyes wide and searching for munchable mortals and as the voice of Vincent and I become one I am getting louder "...The funk of forty thousand years!..and grisly ghouls from every tomb.."
Oh shit.
Here comes Ma from the living room...and the real terror begins.
It's Ma Grover, Keisha's grandmother..my default sitter
Sh's got a grey puff of hair stuck atop her head like a Brillo pad
Two thin Avon-scribbled lips pulled down to a permanent frown like a caught catfish with two hooks in both corners of the gasping mouth
She's got a
Big
Fat
Ass
usually planted in front of some televised evangelist as she slurps eternal tomato soup out of geriatric tupperware
If she's not chasing Keisha around with that same ancient bottle of baby oil trying to rub out some sort of imaginary ashy spot or tugging at Keisha's head with that boar-bristle brush as I look on in empathy-
thankfully exempt from this salon by Ma's fear of the lice that can hide in a slip of white-girl hair.
Ma's always making a big fuss over hiding Keisha's Ugly
but it is a lie
the child gleams
and you can't kick dirt over that kind of lovely
In my 8-year old head still stuffed with fairy tales I see a Cinderella story
and I am the Beast who knows Beauty when I see it.
We had little in common
save the same sad hole of a neighborhood and the same brand of parents who needed us out of their way...but
hoped we were okay
My parents young punks in a band
Keisha's Oh Father Who Art in Prison and an overworked mother whose soft sweet voice opened out of her throat like a yawn..like she had always just woken up.
I didn't have to be there.
I could of hung out at the Schaffer's- smoked stolen Kools on the steps of the burned-out church across the street...run rampant all the soggy summer day..barefoot and deliciously delinquent.
But Keisha was good..and hadn't learned yet that defiance was a poor kid's best line of defense..and I thought she needed me...and I so needed to be needed. So under a dogwood tree I held her hand, named her Best Friend and swore that I'd never ever leave her.
We did allright most of the time, staying outside till the folks arrived..we'd pee in the bushes to avoid Ma.
Occasionally she'd storm out at us, screen door banging..to shake a stick at us, make us cut a switch, teach us a lesson, make us behave..
One day Ma Grover heard me say the "F" word. When she was done with me I winced the whole way home, couldn't ask Mom where the band-aids were so I patched the backs of my legs up with tolet paper and scotch tape. The worst cuts were made by that slip of metal that had edged the ruler she'd broken over my bent bony frame.
I went back the next week, and I never let her see me cry.

It's 2 am, Ma.
and for 120 minutes, I've been seventeen.
And I am Everything...
every shitty thing you ever said I'd be.
You are probably dead by now, but I wouldn't know.
I left Keisha behind a long long time ago.
Of course I did.
Of course I did.
Oh Ma...I need you.
I need you to beat me so hard
that I'll never smoke, cut, snort, fuck, steal or run away again.
Old Lady, right now I am beggin to break
beneath your brand new ruler.