Push by Sapphire (Ramona Lofton).
Title: Push.
Author: Sapphire (Ramona Lofton).
Genre: Literature, fiction, abuse, social criticism, dialect, stream of consciousness.
Country: U.S.
Language: English.
Publication Date: June 11th, 1996.
Summary: Claireece Precious Jones is an obese and illiterate 16-year-old girl who lives in Harlem with her abusive mother Mary. Precious has recently fallen pregnant with her second child, the result of being raped by her father, also the father of Precious' first child. She meets a determined and highly radical teacher who takes her on a journey of transformation and redemption.
My rating: 8/10
♥ For me this nuffin' new. There has always been something wrong wif the tesses (tests). The tesses paint a picture of me wif no brain. The tesses paint a picture of me an' my muver - my whole family, we more than dumb, we invisible. One time I seen us on TV. It was a show of spooky shit, an' castles, you know shit be all haunted. All the peoples, well some of them was peoples and some of them was vampire peoples. But the real peoples did not know it till it was party time. You know crackers eating roast turkey and champagne and shit. So it's five of 'em sitting on the couch; and one of 'em git up and take a picture. Got it? When picture develop (it's instamatic) only one person on the couch. The other peoples did not exist. They vampires. They eats, drinks, wear clothes, talks, fucks, and stuff but when you git right down to it they don't exist.
I big, I talk, I eats, I cooks, I laugh, watch TV, do what my muver say. But I can see when the picture come back I don't exist. Don't nobody want me. Don't nobody need me. I know who I am. I know who they say I am - vampire sucking the system's blood. Ugly black grease to be wipe away, punish, kilt, changed, finded a job for.
I wanna say I am somebody. I wanna say it on subway, TV, movie, LOUD. I see the pink faces in suits look over top of my head. I watch myself disappear in their eyes, their tesses. I talk loud but still I don't exist.
I see it over and over, the real people, the people who show up when the picture come back; and they are pritty people, girls with little titties like buttons and legs like long white straws. Do all white people look like pictures? No, 'cause the white people at school is fat and cruel like evil witches from fairy tales but they exist. Is it because they white? If Mrs Lichenstein who have elephant stomach and garbage smell from her pussy exist, why don't I? Why can't I see myself, feel where I end and begin. I sometimes look in the pink people in suits eyes, the men from bizness, and they look way above me, put me out of their eyes. My fahver don't see me really. If he did he would know I was like a white girl, a real person, inside. He would not climb on me from forever and stick his dick in me 'n get me inside on fire, bleed, I bleed then he slap me. Can't he see I am a girl for flowers and thin straw legs and a place in the picture. I been out the picture so long I am used to it. But that don't mean it don't hurt. Sometimes I pass by store window and somebody fat dark skin, old looking, someone look like my muver look back at me. But I know it can't be my muver 'cause my muver is at home. She have not left home since Little Mongo was born. Who I see? I stand in tub sometime, look my body, it stretch marks, ripples. I try to hide myself, then I try to show myself. I ax my muver for money to git my hair done, clothes. I know the money she got for me - from my baby. She usta give me money; now every time I ax for money she say I took her husband, her man. Her man? Please! Thas my mutherfuckin' fahver! I hear her tell someone on phone I am heifer, take her husband, I'm fast. What it take for my muver to see me? Sometimes I wish I was not alive. But I don't know how to die. Ain' no plug to pull out. 'N no matter how bad I feel my heart don't stop beating and my eyes open in the morning. I hardly have not seen my daughter since she was a little baby. I never stick my bresses in her mouth. My muver say what for? It's outta style. She say I never do you. What that child of yours need tittie for? She retarded. Mongoloid. Down Sinder.
What tess say? I don't give a fuck. I look bitch teacher woman in face, trying to see do she see me or the tess. But I don't care now what anybody see. I see something, somebody. I got baby. So what. I feel proud 'cept it's baby by my fahver and that make me not in picture again.
♥ Ms Rain say don't always rhyme, stretch for words to fall like drops of rain, snowflakes - did you know no two snowflakes is alike? Have you ever seen a snowflake? I haven't! All I seen is gobs of dirty gray shit. You mean to tell me that nasty stuff is made of snowy flakes. I don't believe it.
Each day is different. All the days is gobbled together to make a year, all the years gobbled together to make a life.