There was a stench in the air, as thick as lard, caked-up in the room smoldering at the threshold like a fog cloud, heartache pain can do that to you. His words got stuck tween my ears and when I close my eyes I can see them bumping all around in my head. My heart ached so badly and my pussy was wet, stayed wet and jumping. I don’t mind the stench, thick as lard. I ain’t never smelt anything like it before. It seemed as if it wanted to climb inside of my mouth and nose and choke me, make me vomit. He wanted to get me back most likely but didn’t I think he loved me. Yes he told me before. He also told me it was hard for him to sex anyone after me, he couldn’t stay hard, less he thought about me and the things I did to him. From jump, when he got off the track and he come to my place, he would lay across  my bed dog tired, and while he be asleep I would take off his shoes and socks and I would soak his feet in hot soapy water then message them real good with either baby oil or Vaseline. I would sit on the floor and rub his feet for hours. I would feed him and give him drinks then I would fuck him, I would fuck his entire body, well ain’t that some of what Mary did for Jesus? What could he tell me now? That whatin’ him in there now looking old and heavy. He said it hurt his heart that I wasn’t a lady.

Is that why you did it?

I couldn’t help what I was or wasn’t, I loved him, isn’t that all that matters? He just ought to know I love him still.

But he is gone?!?

I know

Why?

I was talking too loud and he hated to see me cry.

Don’t know why there’s know sun up in the sky stormy weather since my man and I ain’t together It seem like I should have been over joyed or hysterical filled with tears, filled with something, anything, but I wasn’t guessed it confused them too, so many of them standing around. The music just kept right on playing and the wind showing off outside had everything moving. I was in pain, the kind of pain you just don’t feel in your body. This is the kind of pain that done pulled everything out of you and your empty inside and the pain is like a thick wool and fur coat just right on the outside of your skin, ta certain people touch it could bring you to tears, but others just agitate it and you just want to scream you know what I mean? And God I want to scream but I don’t want anyone to think I’m crazy, I just ask nicely for them please not to touch me, and too I got this wine all over me, the king of Kings brew deep, rich and sweet. Who will kiss my lips now? See I can fuck anybody, I can open my whole up to anyone, no he didn’t understand that, he kept saying to me lady. But my lips, my mouth, share secrets of the tongue, close my eyes and read soul signs on breath, let them read mine…Noooo that wasn’t given easily, and who now then will kiss me? My heart is lonely, but I’m not never have been, but my heart is weak done had him and now what is she too do? I know, I know you don’t like the “N” word and I know, I know that there are other words to use but none fits here like Nigga, you understand. I know the history, the evolution, the connotation, the pain, I took my truck and rammed it into a man’s car for using the word I thought at me, but in fact was using it in fun with someone else. I know the emotional backlash, re-lash, brain-click the word carriers still for the life of me I can’t find another word to fit this, here, him. This nigga brought something to my heart that I only read, saw in a movie, he did something to me my body and I had to have him, needed him wanted him, she knew I didn’t, but she did. He replaced the men that touched her in the dark, in secret, he replaced the ones who just wanted to cum, even when that’s what I wanted, he replaced the ones who just didn’t get who I was or where I was coming from, who wanted to change me, us into something different…and love just took over my being inside and out it seeped into my every  being and he wasn’t the one the kind to love and I knew it and she knew it and even he knew it but he wanted it and she had it already before I even knew and like I said I should be over joyed right now, I should be happy or hysterically in tears even though the pain is not in my body right now, it is just holding onto to me like a coat, a thick ass furry coat and I should be feeling like the lady in the song, but really she sound to clean to be hurting. Her voice sounds like she should really be singing for the lord and not over some dude. But she shoal is right it ain’t no sun nowhere in the sky and my man and I ain’t together and I wonder how can I feel that clean ever again?

Sarah looked at her reflection in the window, stains here and there and thought we all got stains every bodies just not on the outside like hers is now, no one would believe her about her stains, even though now it has been played out over and over no one wants to hear or believe in tales like that, no one wants to really hear or know about things like that. Everybody no how it was growing up black, poor, without your real daddy in the home or on drugs or being a rolling stone, we all done heard the stories didn’t always match, but we heard them didn’t we and we talked over women in the kitchen getting their hair iron out, with cigarettes and drinks. Oh yeah we talked about it at sleep over’s with our best friends on the floor with sleeping bags and cookies and milk. Yes we talked about it laying on counselors couches while he rub the newly growing hairs on your downside of your body telling you to close your eyes and not to be scared and try to remember everything. We talked about it to our lovers crying on their shoulders telling please not to tell anyone and try to get along with him or in some cases them because they is still my family. And he was no different just can’t remember if I straight out told him for comfort or if we were arguing about the way I was not being a lady and I just tried to cut his head off with the information but he knew, he knew it too I loved him, she loved him more, that is why she is lonely and I’m not I know about life and death in this case. I know nothing last forever nothing. I knew she loved him more than anything in life cept for the life she brought into this world, and the Gods don’t like that too much if you can blame them, the other one spends all her time talking to the Gods, that we, me and the lonely one had to get dealt with correct? But I do love the way his lips felt on mine, the way he touched me, the way he called me his baby, asked me if I was his baby, loved me…loved me…loved me. He never said he wasn’t like the others? No he never said that to me, he never claimed to be anything other than what he was like me, we just didn’t lie to each other in that kind of way and I go back and kiss his now cold lips, hard and look at him, he is not there anymore, it is not him anymore. I know I didn’t respond back when he told me he loved me, but he had to know the truth. I know he didn’t think I was waiting on him cause, she was lonely not me I always had someone around me, but I was I was waiting on him. The other one had me fooled like we were going to have time, she had me thinking that we would get another chance, some other time she had me going, he did say he was going to take me for a ride before the weather changed and he called and he offered and he wanted me to come see bout his computer, in his bedroom. He never said that when he got mad he wasn’t going to put it to me, I can get loud and crazy when I drink. Can’t ask him again why or what happen, he gone now and he ain’t never coming back.