The roach was watching to see if death was the price for authenticity. She swatted it absent mindedly with her plushy pink slipper, never faltering in letting him know, the swift demise was meant for him.

He paced like a matador---wearing out the bruised linoleum cracking under his heavy boots. Corrine sucked her teeth, shifting her crossed legs to the other side, arms folded over the pink terry robe, that barely covered her full bosoms. She was trying to turn herself inside out. “ Solomon, will you sit down, dern! I can’t think when you pacing the floor like that”. She really just wanted to look in his face to forget the fear that was welling up again. As if he knew, he sat, placing his hands over his face to block her angles. He didn’t want to be read.

“ Just explain to me again, why you did that to yourself Cori?”, his voice was scratchy, coarse and broken. “Explain how you make decisions that involve TWO not one? What am I suppose to do with the information you telling me?” She had broken him and was proud. “Learn”, she said softly. “Learn that when you want grown up things, you gotta plant grown up seeds. Cain’t be out doors shiny and new and leave me to grow alone. The weeds been killing us. So I killed the rest.” She looked out the window that showed no view. He looked up from his big working hands with permanent stains and sliced her with his stare. “Corrine, you killed our baby! OUR baby! And all you gotsta tell me is learn?!”

She watched his rage without much fanfare.

Her insides were still sore from the abortion that unraveled her being from his for good. “All I killed was memory Solomon. You and I wasn’t made to birth nothing good. She got up from the small table with a penny under the leg to keep it balanced, and walked to the stove to turn the stew bubbling over in the old pot.

Hadn’t even seen the knife. No she sure didn’t. But felt the blade slice her neck making her gurgle. There was blood in the stew, but the blade was clean.

He sat in a chair by the window breathing lightly. “ I’m all grown up now Cori ‘, he whispered to no one in particular but the pink line in dark sky.

if you didn't define yourself for yourself you'd be crunched into other peoples fantasies of you an eaten alive.

audre lorde