Me & Lay Li ain’t talking
 
cause she think she cute
cause she think I ain’t.
 
Must be pretty boy Curtis
all in her head
all in her mouth
making her forget
her home training.
Making her forget
her daddy got a gun for a living.
 
& her mama gone.
 
& this is why I think
 
she ain’t got no sense, nohow.
Cause ain’t nobody but fast girls
checking for Curtis.
& he keep her name close
& she don’t come home
the same way no more.
She must think she cute!
Must think I ain’t!
 
Like she ZendayaSkaiStormMeganNickiBeyoncé or something
Like she long curly hair movie star perfect
Like she perfect pink nail salon pop queen perfect
Like she all new Macy’s rack & Adidas shell toe perfect
Like she glossy magazine cover most beautiful girl perfect
Like she ain’t never had a bad day in the sun perfect
Like she ain’t never had a bad picture kind of perfect
Like she got a life don’t nobody judge cause she’s so perfect
 
I mean,
look how she keep me waiting like
I’m supposed to wait on Curtis
or something
& I hate his light-skinned self!
Especially because he ain’t as funny
as he think.
Especially when he calls me black
& ugly & stupid!
 
& Lay Li stay grinning
 
like he the sun
like we ain’t friends
 
they boyfriends see Lay Li
It’s like they see the best parts of they favorite movie 
& they favorite movie got they favorite soundtrack 
& they favorite soundtrack make them feel strong 
& they swing they arms around & show off to whoever is looking 
I mean, sometimes I get caught looking but I ain’t got n o t h i n g to say
Not Lay Li 
She act like she never lookin’
  
She must think she cute 
But she ain’t just cute
 
Lay Li pretty 
& they boyfriends at the skate rink 
forget they home training around her. 
So when Curtis say the things 
I’ve already said about myself 
& she laugh 
I know deep down inside 
she ain’t never care about me at all.
  
Lay Li the sun
 
& she called me best friend 
Called me smart 
Called me her ace 
Called me her right-hand sis 
Lay Li called me my name 
Ain’t never call me nothing but my name 
When everyone else call me nothing 
She say best friend--like sis-patna-friend & she laugh bright bright
  
Because Lay Li the sun 
now I know she just said them lies 
to keep my shadow 
all up & around her sunshine smile
  
Like that time we skipped school
  
for the pool party 
& all the girls wear bikinis 
but I got my one-piece on 
with a white T-shirt on top. 
& the boys just looking 
like they mama ain’t taught them nothing worth knowing.
  
Lay Li got that good hair 
so she don’t care if it’s wet & loose. 
But my hair ain’t close to being good 
so I keep it in a real real real tight ponytail 
until the sun get so hot 
I jump in & cool my sadness down.
  
It’s like I already know.
  
So I let my shoulders sink low 
like my heart be 
& I watch Lay Li 
how she walks & everybody stops 
& I’m trying to learn 
how to walk in a room & turn their heads 
how to move in a crowd & be the light 
how to keep a boy’s interest 
but not just any boy 
a boy who remembers my name 
maybe a cute one with long eyelashes 
& gentle hands 
the kind of hands that keep to themselves 
how to keep my sister, Essa, from talking bad to me 
my older sister tell you “don’t mess up my name,” 
she go so far to move her mouth & show her perfect white teeth 
it’s “EEEEEE-SaaHHHH like mantra, like a prayer” 
how to move through the world 
standing tall & demanding to be named properly 
how to be more than a baller 
how to be someone that keep ’em guessing 
how to stop stressing because ain’t nobody 
got time for the kind of shade I got 
but everybody got time for some 
s u n
  
Lay Li smile at Curtis
  
& he only a little bit cute 
but he ain’t funny or smart 
so that’s how I know her grin is a lie.
  
& I pretend I don’t hear his slur 
I pretend I don’t see his hazel eyes 
when he say “lose her ugly black ass” 
& Lay Li laugh. 
Laugh like a knife in the back or laugh hysterical like the girl running from the scary man in a hockey mask or laugh like kids being followed around the mall by security or laugh like I do when my sister, Essa, makes me the butt of the joke. See I laugh & laugh & laugh & laugh & 
she say “Shut up, Curtis” 
but it sounds like   “Come here.”
  
I dunk my head underwater slow 
& wait 
just wait 
I wait even longer 
for her to say a n y t h i n g like:
  
“don’t talk about my friend, I don’t care how pretty your eyes is!” 
But she just say “shut up” 
& she l a u g h 
the kind of laugh that make me forget 
we even friends 
the kind of laugh that make me forget 
we even 
& I think 
I could stay here 
where it’s all a blurry aqua blue, 
I think 
I could stay here 
where my eyes 
don’t hurt as much 
& it don’t feel 
like I’ve been looking at the sun 
all day l o n g.
 
Okay, so boom. This is how Lay Li & I met. 
At the end of summer, when we ready to head into the first semester of freshman year, I got a problem 
with the boys who keep slapping the water. Tyrone & Adam slap the water at me 
when I swim by them. Because everybody knows I’m better than them on the basketball court. 
Still, I keep calm. I play cool. I see a girl at the edge of the pool. Red swimsuit & long wavy ponytail. 
Her right eyebrow lifted skylike: She ready for the joke. But she ain’t laughing. 
The boys slap the water. I swim under the current. I head to her side of the pool. 
& so do they. They slap the water but her mouth ain’t like mine. It ain’t closed 
lock-like & tight, until I’m on the court with a nasty dribble. It ain’t safety pin safe 
like my grandmother taught me. Her mouth curse them until their eyes water. Her lips 
curl & she cross both her arms “& you betta not do it again!” They laugh 
& she don’t. This girl I never seen before got a name: Lay Li. 
I wipe my eyes, stinging from the blue water. “Thank you,” I say, pretending it don’t burn.
  
Two years later & Lay Li bathing suit
 
Is way better than mine 
I hate my royal blue one-piece
 
It’s a hand-me-down 
It’s ugly
  
I rather wear my basketball shorts 
but they’re the only pair I got 
keep dry when I walk home
  
Everybody who know somebody 
will skip class for the pool party 
& everybody will have a cute bathing suit on: 
Strawberry red 
or bright yellow 
or periwinkle blue
 or one of those two-pieces with candy cane stripes
  
But not me
  
I put a T-shirt on top
 
& try to hide 
this ugly-ass basic blue swimsuit 
Mines is long in the crotch 
so long the water drains slowly down my leg 
after I climb out the deep end.
  
I put a T-shirt on top 
& try to hide the history 
of where my people from 
the ones that got a pit bull with a chain around its neck & smoke clouds everywhere
 
I put a T-shirt on top 
& try to hide where I come from
the kind of folks that park on the lawn & clean they car 
with the Gap Band blasting out the door speakers
 
I put a T-shirt on top 
& hope no one asks where my dad works. 
Where my dad is? 
Why my sister, Essa, & I always fight on the lawn?
  
I just want to swim
  
in the teal green sorta blue bubble
 
& forget all the things that make me different
for a little while.
 
Basketball Drills #1
 
both hands grip the orange world
ridges in black talk back to my fingertips 
James 
Bird 
Bryant
Catchings
Jordan 
Leslie 
Curry 
Hammon 
Jackson 
Iverson 
Johnson 
For every letter of their name 
I plant my feet aim & shoot 
if I flick my left wrist perfectly 
I’ll soar like the greats.
 
After my drills
 
Lay Li & I both sit in the shade 
on the front lawn of the neighborhood candy house 
Miss Irene got white hair & a permanent scowl 
She got white hair, a little white lapdog & wear a dusty muumuu 
She smokes cigarettes, the white stick hanging from the cliff of her lip 
Like a daredevil
 
Miss Irene say she ain’t got time for us kids 
& don’t let nobody curse on her front yard 
But she got a Costco card & charge pennies on the dollar 
for our favorite sweets
  
We get a dollar worth of candy in a plastic sandwich bag 
that we share
  
After my basketball drills, I walk around the barbed gate 
of the neighborhood pool 
I climb into the blue green water and float for days 
Really I only got an hour before the pool closes 
But I don’t care when I’m floating 
It lets me think 
My eyes closed or searching the sky for animal figures 
Ice cream cones & airplanes that skip across the blue blue up
 
The aqua water carry my arms & legs 
A body of girl & whoosh 
When I’m too tired to move my calves & arms 
I climb out the water & feel less rubber band 
& more light light 
Most days the water burns everything 
my nose & eyes & even my hair is too dry 
but I feel clean 
I feel more me than when I arrived
 
Lay Li meets me after the pool 
She ain’t get in the pool but she still wears 
her tube top bikini, a towel draped around her shoulder 
like a comma. 
She bites at her cuticles & I already know
  
It’s been almost two years since silly boys slapped water in the pool 
Now the boys are gone & it’s just me doing floating like a log 
while Mommy & Me classes happen in the shallow end
  
my muscles hurt after playing Horse alone 
A girl on the basketball court ain’t no different 
than any other baller, if you work hard enough 
that’s what my cousin Inga say 
She the first one to teach me to hold the globe with both hands 
to use my right hand to guide the ball.
 
Finally out of the pool 
I can see the harsh water peels my skin 
I don’t have any cocoa butter on me 
So I pull my legs up, crisscross-applesauce 
& focus on Lay Li. 
When she bites her nails it’s not because she’s nervous 
More like anxious and angry 
& always it’s about her mama 
“So what happened?” I ask 
& she frowns at her hands 
Then covers her face from the dipping sun
 
She shrugs
& instantly I feel bad 
I know what it feels like to have 
Too much to say 
So much you can’t speak 
I make noise when I’m nosy 
I slap the mosquitoes gnawing at my legs
 
It’s been a year since we last talked 
about her mama but that’s the only 
thing that bothers her enough 
to bite-ruin her perfect nails
 
But Lay Li don’t sweat it 
she don’t swing at the mosquitoes 
she don’t even miss a beat.
“That woman been gone so long 
I can barely remember what she looks like.”
  
I can’t imagine
 
what it’s like to forget my mother’s face 
I sit quiet & wait for her story to unfold
 
My mama still on drugs 
& my daddy ain’t got time for all that 
He don’t want us girls to see her like that 
He says every child deserve to be the sun 
To know they come from the sun 
& if the sun snuff itself to dusk before its time 
& no shine is left to see 
Let it be
 
One day we woke up & she was already 
a cloudy shadow of herself 
Then one day we woke up & she was 
gone
 
She only come home when she clean 
She only call home when she sorta sober 
She ain’t never remembered my birthday 
or my sisters’ birthday & I’m like whatever.
 
When you live where we live 
You say what it is & if you can’t say what it is 
Or if it hurt too much 
Or maybe it’s too confusing 
You just say “whatever.”
 
That way you ain’t no lie
 
Don’t nobody Want to Call It
 
Especially when it got more faces than any solitary name 
but if I’m honest 
I want to know if Lay Li seen the zombies too
 
The ones who take over my uncles’ bodies
after weeks of playing ghost 
only to return him to our front door 
with his clothes all crumpled 
& eyes brimming red
 
Lay Li is the only one I can talk to about 
The smell of hot ash & burned glass 
“You know what it looks like.” 
She stands up from the grass
swinging her dry striped towel in the air 
“It looks like the walking dead.”
 
On the way to my house
 
I need to rinse the chlorine off my skin 
I need to remember who I am 
Lay Li say, “Where’s your cocoa butter?” 
& I know she wants to call me ashy. 
When I walk through the front door 
I’m surprised no one is home 
I turn on the television & tell Lay Li I’ll be right back 
Right out the blue Lay Li calls to me already running up the stairs
“I’m just tired of crying 
over someone 
that’s been gone so long.”
 
Lay Li laughs
 
like the joke’s on everybody but her
 
Lay Li 
squints into the mirror & pouts 
Lay Li 
applies more lipstick than a little 
Lay Li 
takes my lip gloss as backup just in case 
Lay Li say 
“It’s so boring here. Let’s call Shawn.”
  
I laugh like the joke is on Shawn 
He’s her old crush & first real boyfriend 
Since her mama left the house 
But then I realized she just called my house boring
 
& now my feelings are hurt. 
Lay Li say 
“Don’t be like that. I ain’t mean nothing by it.” 
Lay Li 
pull my ponytail a little 
Lay Li 
is forgiven 
again.
 
I move
 
her hand & brush at my hair 
I mimic the mirror 
Reach to take back my lip gloss 
& my pride 
from Lay Li’s hands 
It’s the inexpensive kind from the neighborhood CVS
 
She pretends she’s gonna keep it 
like a child & its pacifier 
her arms swing above both of our heads 
helicopter style
 
Out of my reach
She is pleased with herself 
& giggling to my hands 
waving in the air 
fire the roof is on fire
but it ain’t
& I don’t crack a smile
 
This makes her laugh even harder
All her teeth showing
All my steam moving like a cloud when I cut my eyes
She sighs 
rolls her eyes 
then tosses it to me before she grabs the phone
 
& dials with one last perfect pink nail
 
same color as Essa’s (I think) 
But I don’t say anything
Just pucker my lips as 
she watches me with boring eyes apply the sheen
 
Like an impostor.
								
									 Copyright © 2021 by Mahogany L. Browne. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.