CAGED

Three

Today I let myself remember. I let my thoughts wander overboard beyond cliffs where I have trained it not to wander. Today I think of my mother.

African she is. She still maintains the heritage and packs up her kinky hair or she braids it. Some days, she combs it and the fullness makes her face appear smaller, younger, Wilder. She also had beautiful dark skin and the body of one even younger than me.

Kent once described me as chocolate smeared with caramel pudding. If he meant that I am the complexion of none but both, then I accept that description.

My hair was formally straightened for a fluid flow with the comb but now it seems to have returned to its natural state. Just as I was once chubby but this past month or months has reshaped me. Yet my face is not wild like my mother's. Many times it has been called innocent with a touch of mischief and that's all.

I don't know if it is that little mischief that forced me to search the cartons in the room. My mouth hung open when I realized that there were weapons inside the stuffed dolls. Some of them, I did not understand but I know a gun when I see one - not a toy gun. A real gun. I also know a pen knife used to carve chickens in pieceful gatherings which is always used to carve higher animals when the need arises.

Yesterday and two days before, it was just water I had. I don't know if it is what my captor understands by change of meal or maybe she is punishing me for the sins she knows I will commit. 

Without the strength to protest, I take the can of water each time it is passed and gulp it down while standing. Then I return to the door to aimlessly glare at her as she walks past.

These are all the reasons why I think of my mother. I know my time is near. These days I imagine it too often. I even dream about it. I am yet to determine if she deserves a goodbye.

With her, love was different. I loved her enough to hope no harm comes to her but if she's sick and needs me, I don't think I will go to her. That is one area we are alike; we don't think about others.

People think that slave trade is being in heavy chains in nudity but my mother wears no chain not even a ring and is fully clothed. Yet she's a slave. 

I remember the first time I told her Uncle Joel, her boyfriend or whatever their relationship was - was touching me. She looked at me, pleading with her eyes for me not to utter the words so the walls do not hear the abomination. She did not believe it or she forced herself not to believe it. She said I was exhibiting 'infantile jealousy and anger'.

How could it be so? I did not know my father. Uncle Joel's roof was the only shelter I ever had. He was the father I should have had. How could I hate him without a cause? 

When I showed her the welts at my back where Uncle Joel slapped his belt before dragging me by the throat back to the bed, she was silent. Later she treated the wounds, dabbing hot water around it.

"Imani, it will be hard for us to survive on our own. We need Joel." She had said.

It was like she was telling me to understand the pain inflicted on me because we were being fed by the man. But she lied. We did not need him. She did.

One of the days, while she lazily stitched Uncle Joel's torn work garment, my thirteen years old body crawled to her. "Tell me who my father is. Let me look for him."

She dropped the garment and stood. " He doesn't want you."

This is all I know about my father; he is the man that doesn't want me. How convenient.

I don't know if there's a life I want but this life that was assigned to me - is bitter. It feels like I have died before to live again with a curse.