Please keep all ya' chains tucked inside your shirts at all times. Dress well, but not too well or else you're more likely to be robbed. Keep your eyes to yourself and mind your business, even when the situation tells you not to. If you see somethin...
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Beige remembered what her mother looked like before she became an addict. Beige was ten years old when she watched her mother get ready for work in the morning. Her silky work blouses glistening in the 6-am sunlight, her hair freshly picked out of it's twists that smelled like fresh lemon and cream followed by a sultry pose she did right before she left just to make sure she looked good from all angles.
Beige missed that person. She missed the woman that let her play in her makeup whenever she got bored watching cartoons. The same woman that would bake a $2 box of cake-mix to lighten up the mood whenever things got hard in the household. The only woman Beige looked up to whenever things were looking down. Reneé Lockhart, her mother, also known as her fallen superhero.
Beige remembered the day she noticed her mother was no longer the woman she looked up to. Her demeanor turned cold and she barely spent time with her. Beige used to come home from school ready to talk her ear off about her day as she cooked dinner for both of them but those days turned sour whenever her mother would walk in the apartment at midnight, barely able to stand on her own two feet. Beige waited for her on the couch in the dead of night just so they'd have a single conversation before the day ended but her mother wasn't interested in conversations anymore.
Her mother always came in damped in sweat. She was unnaturally clumsy, knocking over whatever she couldn't immediately see. She spoke gibberish under her breath as she carried herself to her bedroom for the remainder of the night. It was almost like watching a zombie roam around looking for a human to prey on. Mornings where she'd usually be flirtatiously getting ready for work were now mornings of her trying to get over the height she had taken herself to the night before. This became routine and soon enough, she lost her job due to the increasing absences.
Reneé fell into a deep depression and used heavy narcotics to cope. The older Beige grew, the more she witnessed her mother deteriorating right before her eyes. Her honey brown skin was polluted with tiny brown spots that marked all the places she injected herself. Her eyes nearly sunk into her skull as her face lost its plumpness and nearly rested on the bone that lied beneath it. Her once decent dentures were destroyed from the many years of grinding against each other and the lack of oral hygiene. Last but certainly not least, her hair, the beautiful mane of light brown curls that Beige adored so much, went limp along with the rest of all that was Reneé Lockhart.
Beige never knew what started Reneé's downward spiral but she did know that she didn't want to follow in her footsteps. Beige had never felt so neglected and ignored. From the vulnerable age of ten, she has been on her own. She could no longer rely on her mother who was either too high to focus on her or too busy chasing a quick fix with the little bit of money she had.
Her mother was gone and Beige was forced to accept it.
"Beige, you got some money?"
Beige looked up from her bed as her jittery mother came in the room looking for something and anything to touch. Her hands roamed around her body, finding themselves in her thin strands of hair and in her hoodie's pockets, back in her hair and then right back in her pockets like a constant rewind and playback.
