The Sun Called Me Beautiful: Tales Of A Young Black Heart

Dandelions in a Pebble Field

I always kept close to the perimeter where the soft red wood that enclosed the park brushed gently against my exposed ankles leaving marks and the occasional splinter. The smooth pebbles that decorated the grounds shuffled and shifted under the soles of my worn shoes, almost as if they were making room for me. They were an assortment of colors. Green, red, and white. Scattered about these stones were dandelions that would inch their way up from in between a pair of those decadent stones and it never ceased to amaze me. Flowers, even those considered to be weeds, always found a way to bloom from the most peculiar conditions. Whether it be a rose from a crack in the concrete or a dandelion from a crack between two pebbles, flowers sought to teach me a most needed lesson of persistence. 

My young mind was both anxious and numb. I felt like a stranger in a strange land. White boys would see me coming and steal glances in my direction like they were shooting spears. Wiping snot from their rosy pink noses, they cut their beautiful bright colored eyes at me. They're glances were their way of speaking without words. They were intent on letting me in on their shared unspoken decree. I wasn't needed or wanted in their playground. I don't think, even once, it ever occurred to them that I was just as uninterested in them as they were in me. 

They held onto silver chains gleaming in the golden sun with their hands clutched tightly around vice grips as they were suspended in mid-air. They called to their friends with high-pitched nasal sounding voices. They always sounded like a fanfare of trumpets blaring; their voices shooting up and broke against the sky breaking into a million pieces like fireworks. They're eyes locked in on me as if they were afraid. Terrified that if they took their eyes off me for one second, I'd disappear into the fading day with the whole of their precious playground shoved deep in the pit of my pocket. I'd skip away with a cruel and vengeful laugh deep in the center of my throat: A boy can dream. 

So, I stayed near the edge. Never a threat, just an unwanted thing pestering about. Passing by those mysteriously beautiful dandelions, making sure not to crush any of them, I tried to keep count of all the red pebbles I passed. Lightly kicking the others aside. It was the only game I could come up with that was equally amusing as it was non-threatening. Contrary to popular opinion, segregation in the modern world is alive and well. And those white boys made sure I knew it. 

They swung themselves and their friends high up into the air and when they jumped from the swings they seemed to flu as if they wanted to catapult themselves into the soft cushy center of those puffy white clouds and be done with this unnecessarily integrated playground. It wasn't enough for them that I kept out of their way, inching along the perimeter as if I were keeping balance on a tightrope. They wanted me gone completely. They wanted nothing to do with my black skin, wide nose, thick hands, and full lips. All of me, they wanted to vanish into the air thick and pulloted with the scent of their entitled self-righteousness. They never spoke these opinions but I could hear them. I could hear their thoughts. See into their brains. Each one was curious about me. Just who the fuck did I think I was? Where did I come from? And just when was I going back?

Their judgement, deafening and unspoken, cut through my like dulled down butter knives. Never intending to kill, only to cut in such a way that the wound was deep enough to leave a scar that would constantly remain and consistently remind. Little does the world knoew the time and energy it takes to care for such wounds. And that they rarely fully heal. Mostly, they scab over leaving rough unfavored patches of blackness where there once used to be deep brown skin that would glow radiantly under the warmth of the summer sun. These patches don't glow. They swallow up the sun, absorb it, and turn into burning fire. Fire that burns indiscriminately.

I became a guard. A savior and a keeper of these dandelions. I made sure they were never left in the sun too long. Whenever I saw one leaning with its leaves trapped beneath a decorative stone or an abandoned bottle cap, I was quick to remove it so that it could be free to stretch itself towards the sun with unburdened perfection. 

On this one particular day the sun was drawing close to the rim of the earth in such a way that it made the sky look like it were gently burning somewhere between a soft orange and fading red. The color was being woven into the sky from the tips of the hills, bleeding its color in, slowly overtaking the pale baby blue sky which seemed to accept it eagerly. A natural tapestry of peacefully integrated colors. 

The stars were just beginning to reveal themselves, twinkling about this auburn heaven like diamonds. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I wanted to stare into it forever. I would have until the sound of cheap hearty laughter pecked against me like rose thorns stabbing and pulling me sharply back into my gross reality. 

During my distracted gaze one of these white boys had crept far away from the swings, just beyond the teeter-totter, leaving behind the safety of the slanted shadow of the wobbling sea horse whose abandoned smile had long ago begun to look menacing as part of its shadow was cast over its left eye like a pirates patch. Far away from the safe center her wandered into the outskirts, into the ghetto. Into my home he was now lurking. 

That white boy had a hold of one of those dandelions which had become so precious to me. He'd plucked it straight from its home between a red and a white stone and before I could curse him for commiting such a gruesome murderous act under the watch of such a beautiful setting summer sun, he popped its head right off as a display of pseudo-manliness. 

How tickled he was as his friend let out cries of excitement at this beheading. Their hoots were animalistic. Oh, how it infuriated me. A felt a forceful burning kindle under my skin. It burned so hot I wondered how my clothes remained unsinged. Not only had they banished me from all enjoyment with their outstretched tongues and squinted eyes. Enjoyment they so eagerly shared amonst each other. While I was lost counting the stars that seemed to hang much closer here than I'd ever seen them before, they committed the most evil of all sins; murder. This spoiled rotten, venom infested boy with bright red hair and freckles scattered chaotically across his face had slithered into the outskirts of the playground with vicious intention to steal, kill, and destroy. And there between his feet was the remnant of what brought me so much joy. 

There it was, there I was lying still and dying between his must stained sneakers. It had been only seconds and I had already before to wilt. My exuberant colors now coated with the bleak stains of impending death. and he stood over me with a smug smile plastered across his face and a wicked cackle spilling from his mouth like rotten acid. 

The next thing I knew I was standing over him. Casting my shadow and that laugh that spilled from his mouth had morphed into floods of shrill whining. The stones that laid underneath him were now coated red with the stain of blood that dripped reverently from his nose. Now there were too many red stones to count. The voices surrounding us were becoming an overwhelming minor symphony and my fear swept me away. I ran. I ran as fast and as far as my feet would carry me. 

As for the remaining dandelions in that pebble field. I don't know what became of them. If another unwanted boy became their guardian. Or if, one by one, they were each mutilated, plucked from their roots, and beheaded in a brutal massacre. All I knew for certain is that I couldn't come back. 

I knew I'd never be welcomed even along the outskirts of that beautiful pebble field ever again.