Anarda Nashai

Melancholy

Between clock and will; time is the deliverer of her freezing still; no alkaline shall drive the ticking hands; nor slumber that free her of demand

This poem is my imagination’s way of defining me.  After writing and studying these words over and over, it is settled that my imagination was unusually kind on this day. 

I believe in fact that it (my imagination) is the only living part of me.  It only feeds me. Never takes anything but my attention from the outside world.  And my mind has become a better archive for all of my thoughts…and dare I say feelings throughout my lifetime.   None the less, it’s still my imagination, and protects me in the only way it can...as figments inside my mind.

When I discovered my love for poetry, I’d decided that I would provoke each prose I wrote with a question.  On the day I attempted to describe myself in this poem, I had scribbled the question above it: 

Who am I?

This question, that has channeled the most profound thing I would ever think or write would have others staring down at the same page, knitting brows heavy with confusion or worry.  They would read my work and shoot back:

“What’s wrong with you?”

I am a black girl from an inner city.  I am a poet who prefers her “space” from the whole of society, but still, I love eating sunflower seeds soaked in apple cider vinegar and am used to buying everything I need from the Chinese take-out slash beauty and barber store.  A walking, talking contradiction at first glance.  I guess that’s what’s wrong.

So, I’m used to being asked this question on a daily basis.  And I guess it was a fair assumption—everyone thinking that something wasn’t quite right with me. 

I’ll start from the beginning. 

I’ve always been “melancholy”.

My third grade teacher wouldn't hide her concern.  After bearing witness to me being totally withdrawn, not speaking in class, even when she called on me—she decided to confront me.  

She pulled me aside after the three o’clock bell sounded and asked me one question:

“Mina, do you know what the word melancholy means?”

I stared at the floor, as always.  “No.”

Mine were always one word answers.  As far as me trying my best to remain as invisible as I felt, they were my best defense. 

All I wanted was for this special attention she was paying to me to end…I just wasn’t used to it.

“Well,” She pulled my chin up so that I had no other choice but to look her in the eye. “It means sad…are you sad about something?”

I shook my head from east to west, knowing exactly where she was going with this. 

Mrs. Parker gave me a sympathetic smile and that was the end of it.

As far as my mother was concerned, my “melancholy” mood was just too much for her to handle.  She left me alone most times without saying anything to me at all.

She needed to take me to the doctor once, when after a week of trying, my eight-year-old body refused to fight a flu virus. 

My mother had no leave to take from her administrative government job.  She went out most nights and usually stayed home to nurse her hangover the following day.  I overheard a telephone conversation the night before my scheduled appointment: 

“I can’t take her to my job…she’ll embarrass the hell out of me.”

A muffled voice on the other end asked her a question in response.

“She don’t say shit…she just lay around reading books…acting like she a fuckin’ retard!”

This wasn’t the first time she’d called me retarded, or the last.  When she and my grandmother would use me as their verbal whipping board, I never reacted or responded.  I didn’t know how.

“Can’t send her ass outside cause the kids around here always beatin’ her ass.”  She continued.  “They treat her like shit cause she won’t do or say nothing to defend herself…she don’t do shit but lay up in the house all day long.”

The voice on the other line interceded again.  My mother sucked her teeth in disgust. 

“Yeah, that’s what my mother said, girl.  But I ain’t spendin’ my hard earned money sendin’ her ass to some special school.”  I felt her staring at me from across the room while she said this.  I never looked up from the living room carpet, where I sat in my corner, my books stacked neatly along the same wall that held back as I read.

“If she got a fuckin’ mental problem, it ain’t nothing that my belt won’t cure—‘cause I’ll beat them damn demons right out of her ass.”

I got up and found the bathroom mirror, staring into my dilated pupils carefully, her hurtful words still ringing in my ears.  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t will myself to cry. 

I’ve never been the emotional type.

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On another day, my mother decided to take me on a little field trip in our neighborhood. 

We took a ten minute bus ride and ended up at a gate that enclosed a huge, rotting building.   She took hold of my hand and pulled my little arm in the direction of the front entrance. 

“Do you know what this is?”  She shoved me in the direction of the building and pointed violently at the wooden sign off to the side. 

I said nothing.  I had no clue.

“This is a hospital for crazy people.  People who don’t talk…people who sit around looking sad all day.”  I made the connection and lowered my head even more. 

So that’s what I was…a crazy person.

“Is this where you want to end up?”  Her voice trembled and cracked. 

I shook my head from side to side.  No, I didn’t want to be in a raggedy old building with bars around it.  I didn’t want to be crazy.

“Well then, you better start acting normal…or I swear, the next time we come here, you’ll be here to stay…do you understand me?” 

With those words, my mother grabbed my arm and walked me back to the bus stop on the opposite side of the street. 

When we got home, my mother looked for signs that I had taken her warning to heart.  Instead, I sat silently on the sofa, staring into my paperback copy of Huckleberry Finn for an hour until I climbed into bed. 

My mother cried herself to sleep that night. 

I never shed a tear.

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I was born to look like my father.  According to my mother, I looked just like that man whore of an asshole.  She would end her sentences in disgust: “…lookin’ just like that tired, nothin’ ass daddy of yours.”

His name was Clyde.  In the single framed picture that stood on my mother’s night stand, he was tall and lanky, with big bug eyes and a wide, engaging smile.  His skin was shiny and medium brown, and he had black leather-covered land yachts where his feet should have been.

And as my mother’s memory serves, he was aimless, self-righteous and talked too much.   Didn’t work nine-to-fives, so he decided that selling dope would pay the rent until he was too old to need anything but a pot and cot.  Got himself shot and killed when I was three months old.  That’s all I know.

I didn’t understand why my mother made the connection between Clyde and I.  Yes, I was tall for my age and my eyes have always bugged a little.  But I was born fat and wasn’t a fan of smiling.  Nope, not brazen or talkative either.  I was the infamous “church mouse”.  

I made sure of that I was never any trouble to her.   Even at that early age, I knew that conformity might bring me closer to my mother. 

Even still, she hated me like she hated him.   I would bear the brunt of that hatred for several years to come…

 © Anarda Nashai