Safe in Aggression
With Nadir, I felt safe.
The boys yell; the girls dance, their thighs and hips pressed to the boys’ groins. Sex in all dance moves. I feel out of place, and not just for my skin tone, a streak of white in a sea of black and brown. I don’t know what they say half the time, words they leaned as kids in a land of blood and sand, from moms and dads who don’t eat all day for a month in the fall, who hush their loud want for food until the sun goes down.
The boys yell at me and wink at me and want to dance with me. They like me more as I am not like their girls; the line is drawn, though it’s not that strong. You can’t see it or touch it. It’s just known. The girls want to teach me to dance but my hips don’t writhe like that. They boys just want to grab me. But I am Nadir’s and with him I feel safe.
He leaves for a short time, off through a door to the next room, and leaves me with a friend whose name I know but can’t spell. He’s a good friend who I also feel a bit safe with, but he gets called by a girl and leaves too. Then I’m all on my own. The girls dance close and grab me and make me dance with them. They show me, push at my back and my hips to make me buck, press their hips against mine to make the boys yell and show me how it’s done. I feel like a fool and a whore.
I try to pull away; I don’t fit here; I want out. The boys jeer and tell me to smile and what’s my name and will I press my ass to their crotch? Can they grab my chest? Will I go to the next room with just them? The girls grab my hand and hold me; they want me to dance more. They like to teach.
Then Nadir is back. The boys and girls fall back. He takes my hand and his lips touch my hair and I am safe.
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Wrote this in my nonfiction class, fall 2008. If you didn't notice, it uses only monosyllabic words accept for Nadir's name. The exercise was to write about an act of violence or aggression using only monosyllabic words.