❝You think you've seen her naked because she took her clothes off? Tell me about her dreams, tell me what breaks her heart. What is she passionate about and what makes her cry? Tell me about her childhood. Better yet, tell me one story about her tha...
"This world has given him nothing at all to lose and everything to prove so they stand on the front lines naked ready to make a man out of themselves with the only tools this world has ever given a nigga to use." -JM ________
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I gazed up at the seventeen-story monoliths; the Parkside Projects were amongst the most dangerous in Xanbia. The inside covered in layers of filth and graffiti. The flickering fluorescent tubes dimly lighting the cinder-block hallways. The elevator wore a torn piece of loose-leaf paper with the words Out Of Order written on it.
In sum, my living situation is shit.
I pulled the grocery bags closer to my sides and began climbing the claustrophobic urine-scented stairs. We lived on the fourth floor in apartment 2D. The hallways were always busy with Jerad selling shit by the pound out of 2J. I nodded to Lucy, a frequent customer of Jerad's, as she passed.
Before I could pull out my keys the door was snatched open. My mother stood there with her antique jewelry box in hand. Her once sylphlike frame shook from withdrawing and her eyes were empty pits that frantically searched for a fix.
"Donmonique, baby, what are you doing back already?" She chuckled nervously stepping back into the apartment so I could pass.
It was days like this one I wanted to cry. I didn't even recognize the woman standing in front of me but I so badly wanted to. "Just go," I sighed hoping she would be long gone before my little sisters ever knew she was back.
"I'm sorry Donnie. I'll be back soon I love you." She snatched her tattered red coat off the nail by the entrance and vanished.
I turned on The Bernie Mac show in the living room, surprisingly my mother hadn't tried to pawn that yet. But the fact that they hadn't cut the lights off yet topped that. This month we had enough money to pay for the food but not enough to cover the electricity. For six months I've been playing Russian roulette with our bills. I can feel myself drowning in responsibilities that don't even belong to me.
"Donnie!" Deshara yelled from the small room she and Delaney shared.
I put the can of beef and macaroni down on the counter and hurried down the narrow hallway to them in a panic.
"What's wrong?" I queried standing in their doorway. Delaney sat up in her bed an expression on her face somewhere between horror and disgust. She'd started her period.
"Go get in the shower Delaney when you get out hand me your underwear and shorts." She nodded. With that Deshara pulled her up and walked her to the bathroom.
The two of them were closer than peanut butter and jelly on a sandwich. It gave me solace that if a day came when they didn't have me they would have each other.
