I could make you, now, a detailed list of all the coverings, large and small, that I constructed to keep myself hidden…I used this passage as a prompt a few hours ago. An 8 minute writing exercise to hopefully initiate further creativity. Reading back I realize that the result was more auto fiction than flash fiction. I had described an incident eerily close to a defining life event. An event that prompted me to hide my voice for decades.
I could make you now a detailed list of all the coverings… I constructed to keep myself hidden… except I didn’t make them all, but I certainly claimed them. Like garments laid out on a bed, I slipped into them and fastened them about my skin. Some seemed tailor made, like a maternal message delivered directly to my cerebral cortex. She meant no harm when she leaned over and whispered into the top of my head. But I wore that proclamation like a corset, literally restricting my voice through every singing classes at Circle in the Square. Theatre school; it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. She gifted me that too, the love of literature. All the arts really. But there were other coverings, ill fitting dress up garments not meant to be incorporated into daily rotation. Toddlers let loose in makeup kits, adult worries smeared across pubescent pouts.
Black girls just wanna get fucked all night, I just don’t have that much jam – Rolling Stones, Some Girls
It was one of the first mainstream (white! rock!) albums to appear in our basement rec room. I was finally in step with my peers. And then the album disappeared. No discovery period, hatches immediately battened down. In a rebuttal to presumed sexuality, twelve year old me represents not just my sex, but an entire island nation and the global diaspora. My head spins because I’m oblivious, still stuck on Beast of Burden. But Operation: Hide Your Best Traits has begun. Hide temptation. The onus is a specious weight. So many coverings. So heavy.
They were to be a sort of armour, shielding me from the dangers of a brutish new world. Eventually, I make my way in the world. Seeking escape in books will lead me to new worlds, new ideas, and new truths. It will take decades and stacks of material but I’m proudly progressing to finding my own narrative. I love that a properly probed passage can reveal truths long buried. I love that every book is a Narnia gateway to whole new worlds. And I love discovering all the stories I have to tell.
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