Calisthenics 1, Week 9

Writing Exercise we did with Dionne Irving

Apprehensive or azurite

I think sometimes you know how people think of you and you never have a visceral reaction, except for with me.

Zoe stands near the kitchen island, her Columbian coffee bean brown skin roasting in the glare from the overhead lights. Her dress, visible only to the crowd building by the screen door, forms a v on her back like sample paint. Her hair creates the proper angles for a square, tantalizing, no one notices; everyone so caught up with her facial beauty they forget the whole picture like reading with an eye patch. She turns, hair swinging along with her catching the corner of wind filtered through the door leading to the porch, unaware that she along with one other young men are the only ones that look alike, everyone else is different. Why did she come? Of all places, why does she always come back here? Her breasts hang, not because she has taken off her bra but because she never needed one in the first place; perky because of her youth, but that may not be the case for much longer. To have her body, threaded in their sheets, is all that they think about body because of its exotic nature the long legs, an animal removed from the human species due to its mythical nature. She goes outside to wait for a cab, the car left in a vehicle cabinet uptown. An outstretched limp wrist calls for off duty cabs to stop for an extra fare, blowing by, her patience only stays because she no longer wants to fight with people, peace seems to be the best alternative for a girl who has been warring with her own self for so long. The fifth cab stops and a billow of Kush flavored air whispers in Zoe’s face, adding another shadow to the street lamps presence.

“where are you headed miss he asked”

“uptown to 181 st”

“sorry miss not this time of night”

His voice as apologetic as the first time he hit his wife, but with less heavy like three years divorce had settled the issue. No fucking cabs uptown. The train station is not that far away, just going to be a long ride home.