My Restless Night

Last night I had to sleep in my car. My roommates were snoring so loudly that I couldn’t take it. So I grabbed my blanket and pillows and cozied up beneath my steering wheel.

I speak a quick work on the final word for my divine JOB as well as a quiet, comfortable place to live. God, you know I need it. I SPEAK IT! I thank you for it! The perfect place for the perfect price in the perfect timing, in Jesus’s name!

I don’t know if it was the uneasy talk I had with my sister before I finally dozed off or the trauma of having to really sleep in my car but, for the few hours that I slept I had one horrendous, continuous nightmare.

There I sat on a stool directly in front of the publisher of the newspaper I just left. She was staring at me intensely and there were others crowded around her. “If you want to be successful, you have to do THIS,” she said as she turned my ear as though it were the dial on a bubble gum machine.

“You’re not gonna get it right,” she said in a voice like the wicked witch of the west. “Until you do it like I tell you. Stop being stubborn! I’ll show you the way!”

She took my arm and rotated it 360 degrees just like a plastic doll. Her fingers moved to my nose and she squeezed it tightly. Then her fingers groomed my eyebrows then widened my eyes.

I sat there, numb, holding back.

“But I want to be ME,” I mumbled weakly.

She laughed. “What has being you gotten you before? You have to give that up girl. I will show you the way!”

The ones standing beside her all smiled and agreed. “You have to comform to get it right. You have to do it just the way she tells you,” they chanted in unison. “She knows the way!”

“Yes honey!” a feminine guy in a hot pink button down shirt and slacks said as he snapped his fingers. “It’s HER way or the highway! She will show you how to fly!” His voice had a Latin flavor to it.

I sat there numb, knowing that I had to break away. When she turned her back I sprinted, but she saw my move and threw a cloud of pink cotton candy behind me, slowing my efforts.

“What have you got in your purse?” she yelled after me as I painstakingly tried to facilitate my escape.

I looked down at my beige purse, the zipper was open. I looked inside. Inside it was all the wisdom that she had given me while I was there.

“You can’t take that with you!” she screamed after me. “You’re not a reporter!”

“I am a reporter!” I screamed back and trudged forward. “I’m just not a reporter like you. I can’t be like you because I’m me.”

She laughed loudly as my feet, heavy with cotton candy, made it difficult for me to flee. She stood and watched me leave. “Bless you!” she called out.

As I reached a doorway and stepped through I sat down to a table to catch my breath and the Latin guy with the pink shirt joined me. I rolled my eyes when I saw him and he held up his hand to silence me. He gently unbuttoned the top button of his shirt.

“Man, I was just frontin,” he said in a deep voice with an accent that was straight HOOD. His feminine mannerisms were gone. “I gotta do what I gotta do. I got bills to pay.”

I jumped up from the table and ran as fast as I could toward the gate outside. As I sped, a woman joined me. She was short like me. She was cute like me. She was fast like me too.

Outstretched arms became visible on both sides of us. Male voices could be heard in the distance. “Hey Mama!” “Hey Red!” “Hey Beautiful!”

We kept on running. It was a race to the finish line.

All of a sudden one of the arms grabbed her and she sat down in the chair with a fine man. I looked back as I continued running and saw that they kissed and cuddled up.

“Wow. Is that how she got her husband? She stopped running the race.”

The arms reached out more insistently now. Handsome faces appeared. They all smiled at me. They taunted me.

“You know you want this.”

“This is what you’ve been longing for.”

“I want to marry you.”

“I want to be with you.”

“I love you, Tee.”

I screamed, “Get away from me!”

Their fingers groped me. Their hands fondled me. They wouldn’t stop when I pleaded for them to release me.

Why don’t people ever LISTEN TO ME? I try to talk nicely. I’ll say, “Hey, I don’t want to have this conversation,” but they will continue anyway.

I’ll say, “Please don’t scream at me.” But they’ll scream anyway.

I try to defuse their negativity or adverse thoughts by agreeing with them.

Ofcourse, I’ll think about it.

You know what? You may be right. Let me consider it.

Knowing GOOD and well I’d NEVER consider what they are saying but I just don’t want to argue about it.

But it doesn’t help, they REFUSE to listen to my calm resistance. They keep insisting that their point is right. I listen. I listen some more. But then after the 3rd mutha fuckin time –I’m done. Respect my mind. I’m trying to be nice.

But when I GO OFF ON THEY ASS- That’s when they shut the fuck up!

But then they want to call me abusive and look all hurt.

Then I feel bad for putting them in their place in a most disgusting way.

So I screamed at the men again, “LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!” and they dissappeared.

Then I saw Dawn, the girl I lived with in Atlanta. “You can’t live with me!” she screamed at me. “You are a liar! You smoked weed on my porch!”

I ran right by her and screamed back. “Bitch I am NOT a LIAR! Yeah..I smoked weed on your porch. But at least I didn’t STEAL from your ass like you did to me!”

I’m running and running but my legs aren’t tired. I want to reach my destination but I don’t know where it is. I keep running and hoping to find that bright place and I’m scared. I hate to admit it but I’m scared. I cry but I keep running because I know I can’t stay. I cry and I think of everyone who loves me, then everyone who hates me. Then I ask God to help me to be a better person so that those who hate me would love me. I asked God to help me be a better mama to my boys so they won’t hate me.

I’m crying and running, running, RUNNING.

I’m a blur.

The world is a blur…

I don’t know where I’m going.

All I know is- I have to go.