What It’s Like

Sunset, July 18th, 2024: South Bronx. 

Slabs of concrete that look like Mayan altars tipped on their side surround us. Allegedly people live in these, stacked on an elevation, a structure poured in the 70s with the express approval of a city planner with a hard-on for Brutalism, arrogantly mismatched centerpieces bordered by spindly four floor walk-ups leaning against the last century. 

I walk by one of the latter and a gangly tomboy no older than 10 exits the building. She has fuzzy caramel hair messily snared in a low ponytail accompanied by height of summer peach fuzz and is wearing baggy jeans and a tan oversized Timberland logo T-shirt that looks like a skull but is actually a tree of life. 

She runs past me to speak to her Tia about dinner; a relay racer passing a question from Mama about how many cloves and how much cinnamon go in the chicken mole, she always gets the two amounts mixed up, and before you know it, the runner is already on her return, looking over her shoulder warily as she shoots past, curious of me, the Blanquita. 

A strong wave of knowing hits me just as hard as the ones in the sea, the kind that slap you in the face and make you inhale water. 

I suddenly know she won’t live past 20 (maybe as soon as 11 at this rate- Daddy’s pain meds from two years ago still sit in the medicine cabinet), and then soon after, another wave hits and tells me she would finally pass at 38, which says to me she probably dies of a fentanyl overdose the first time and is resuscitated and then dies again later from the same venturous interest. 

I’m listening to Little Jimmy Scott on my earbuds, he’s telling me he’ll See Me In The Sycamore Trees. 

The song finishes at last light. 

A sudden breeze makes the edges of my dress rustle like curtains in an approaching storm.