Mommy told me to go into my cold room where the windows never close and simply concentrate on the inside of my eyelids with my hands slapped together. She told me to close my eyes as hard as I could so tears can gather in a tight place in my eyes. She told me to wait until the tears dripped at gaining speeds on my clasped hands just from my deep concentration. The tears never came like she said they would so I diverted my concentration to the embedded scene of Daddy slapping Mommy that one night and the tears began to leap off my face. I smiled in victory against the tears. I started to squeeze my hands so tight together that the inside of my palms turned red like hot blood. I imagined feeling this hot blood gathering between my hands, painting and burning my brown skin red and I loved the feeling. I wanted the blood to come because only then Mommy would see me as good. But it never came. All I had was my imagination. And soon my imagined hot blood joined my forced tears on its voyage south, creating a puddle of bloody tears as innocent as first grade kisses that only I could see. This angered me because Mommy wouldn’t see an imagined puddle and she would never see me as good if she didn’t see it. I had to try harder. I nailed my eyes shut and moved my knees painfully together hoping to hear that voice Mommy talks about. She says that He talks to her all the time like a good friend does on park benches or dorm room beds. I wondered if he talked mean like Daddy or comforting like Barry White. I also wondered if Mommy listened to the voice, but that’s probably a stupid question. I had to find out what He sounds like and what He said so I can tell Mommy and she could see me as good. So with my eyes shut and my knees forcefully on the floor, I tried to hear it, but all I heard was the loud wind from the windows that never closed. But Mama said the voice was loud. She said it was so loud I would repeat what He said line for line joyfully and I would be truly blest. She said it would be stupid, no, bad if I didn’t hear it. I cleansed my ears with the fingertips of my artificial blood and tears and I never heard this loud voice. I opened my eyes in defeat to a blurred mess and shed real tears of disappointment that eventually made my imagined puddle a reality. I stopped crying just in time. Mommy came in the room with concerned eyes and asked me if prayer went well. I could not match my lie of “Yes Mommy” with a look in her dark eyes so I concentrated on her freckled pale nose simply to give the illusion. Mommy bought the lie, like friends of fake Christians do or maybe just fake friends. I started to brag to Mommy about all the fine stuff He told me (I was lying, don’t tell please). I probably was overdoing it, but Mommy’s look of belief, which probably came from my red eyes and puddle of tears, motivated me to continue talking. I told Mommy, “He dun come to me in the third minute since you left, and he say I should get grades and eat apple pie on Sundays, only if I get good grades of course. He also say I got a good mommy (I knew she would like this), and that I gotta always listen to her, well, you. Oh he also say that I could go to sleep in my school clothes, because pajamas ain’t really my style. I gotta look good in my dreams, ya know. Oh yea last but not least, he told me to tell that chick at school to fuck off cause she was only using me and all I was getting out of it was drama. I ain’t know God curse like that Mommy. But that’s what he said. You were right. God is good.” Mama laughed and shook her head. I was satisfied. Mama tucked me into bed that night and she looked down at me in a half dreamy stare, and said, “Yes, God is good, so you be good.” She kissed me on the forehead and walked towards the window that never closed and proceeded in her daily ritual of trying to close it. This ritual was almost as consistent with her late night drinking because of no Daddy. She pushed down on the window ledge as hard as she could, but it never closed. She drunk Heinekens into the early morning, but she never forgot him. I guess God told her not to quit or something. The wind doesn’t bother me. I like the wind, I told her. She didn’t say a word. She walked towards the light switch and turned it off. She whispered goodnight and I whispered it back. When I heard Mama stumbling into the kitchen, I grinned in the darkness. Maybe she will see me as good after all. The wind from the unclosed window comforted me and carried the lies out the window, where no one, not even Mommy could find them. It was this and Mommy believing I was good that made me truly happy. Sleep came real easy that night.
Chidi Asoluka is a sophomore in the College. He is into slam poetry and writing short stories.
