Generations

Mine is a generation of warriors.
We take no prisoners.
We would rather kill than
have someone dangle from our lives like a useless appendage. We need only ourselves.
And love only each other.
Love not in the romantic way, but in the Sisterhood way.
Romantic love rots the heart.
Sisterhood love sustains.

My friend Seven is magic.
She is older than I,
although I am the one who smokes cigarettes.

I am in front of the house, swinging on the gate, harsh cigarette dangling from my mouth. Palm trees dance in the cool breeze as

the sunlight glitters above, casting everything in its heat.

My friend Seven stands still--so much power in her non-movement. Her eyes survey.

She grabs the cigarette from between my lips, throws it on the dirt ground and steps on it. She is wearing no shoes.

Seven is beautiful, bountiful, a plentiful character emboldened in her that tells of a magical mother who is wise to the otherworld.

I swing on the gate and finally her eyes meet mine. My gaze always awaits hers.

How odd the way we touch each other’s lives.

Woman Warrior to another woman warrior: Follow me.

Her tall skinny frame is ahead of mine.

I eye her disheveled hair and quickly crunch mine to get the same effect. I follow her because she is fifteen and I am twelve. I have seen more than she, but still I follow. I have been on airplanes that punctured clouds, kissed bubble tasting lips and seen blood bleed from bodies, fallen on the pavement. I have seen more than her, but still I follow. Seven listens to her heart and keeps still, I listen to my heart and move.

I eye her walk; She is like a camel making its way across the Sahara,

lofty eyelashes pardoning the presence of human travelers. When I attempt to walk that way, my grandfather tells me it is too “womanish”, not “at all lady-like”, which is what he also says of my voice. Children and young ladies, he says, should be seen and not heard—which is why I refuse to be a young lady.

The grass is tall and tickles my toes, brushes my ankles. We arrive at the back of the house. I sit on a patch of dirt. She stands above me. We eye the palm tree towering above us. Angry ants attack me. I scratch and scratch until my dark legs turn white and start to bleed.

Witness this:

Arms and legs stretch and stretch as Seven climbs to the top of the coconut tree. Skirt hitched and hole-ridden panties in full view. Seven climbs down and hands me a green coconut. Machete? I run and get it, and she chops off the top and drinks from it like a man. She passes the smooth green fruit to me & I too attempt to drink from it like a man. Seven says that to survive in this world, we must do everything like men but remember to pay homage to the moon.

When we die our spirits drift on the river of life. The moon’s rays shimmer off the water’s surface. In death, we are birthed back into the universe. We will all return to the collective one, for after all, we are all part of the other.

Seven’s moon is that which is constant, loyal and strong. She says that if you love yourself enough, you can taste the moon. With each drop you can taste the tart taste of mango and it will give you strength in this world, because, she says, it is true that God saves men. But what about the women? We are left to fend for ourselves.