last friday, an old neighbor, we’ll call her “sam,” called to ask if i could watch her daughter “tanya” overnight because she had work and other commitments to keep. sure. it’s not like the child, mature beyond her nine years, and her seven-year-old inquisitive, handful of a sister, "stacy" hadn’t stayed with us before. but when my napping son and i arrived to the bus stop to pick them up, i realize how things have certainly changed since they left the four-plex across from ours and the pot-bellied-pig-wanting-ex who still lives in it.

when i caught up to sam and tanya, i realized how immediately plain hindsight becomes. how much clearer distance makes things. sam’s incessant fidgeting. the reflexive wipe of her nose after every other noun, verb, adjective, POST allergy season. her deliberateness in looking away.

sam looks good in spite of her demons. the kind of good women find after liberation. but there also seems the pain of another kind of imprisonment in her eyes, her over-zealous voice. we embrace and catch up a bit. she fills me in, tells me post inquiry, that stacy was admitted to a “facility” to get her “fits” under control. that she and tanya are doing well and visiting often. that they live low key, don’t want/need other people nosing in their business. i say a silent prayer to the universe before i drop sam off at the gas station near their apartment complex to get cigarettes. they’re cheaper there.

upon leaving, tanya tells her mother to remember to do yoga before bed, to not stay up too late, to have a good night at work. the girl appears quietly mature, and at the same time curious and forthright. she is eager to show me her drawings in her spiral notebook. i smile at the doodling and notes. will someone please fall in love with me? written in large letters on one page. she snickers, flips by that page quickly. i pray again.

the night and early morning go well, save the sibling banter and bickering between my children and the occasional collision of prepubescent girl hormones. by early afternoon, my daughter and tanya find separate corners and activities to occupy themselves; my daughter with her bratz dolls, tanya with my computer.

in my household, i promote talking. i wanted desperately to reach out to tanya in case she needed the time or space, but I didn’t want to force her from her space or intrude on her life. so i watched and waited for questions and conversation that never came.

if my children have questions, i pray they ask them. (and, no matter where we are or who we’re with, if they have a burning question, to my relief and chagrin, they usually do.) as i watch them grow and try to teach them to be a fierce warriors and active participants in their own lives, i try not to overwhelm them with my fears or anxiety about their safe journeys in this world. as i watch them discover themselves in many ways, on many ways, i know i am particularly in tune with and affected by the changes in their sexual growth and the curiosity that comes with understanding sexuality. so, it is not so much the fact that tanya is curious, it is that she had knowledge of how to access porn sites the information on the web that surprised and saddened me. i am not exactly sure what she successfully saw, but, were it not for her bad spelling in her search for sites like brest .com and her lack of internet savvy, she might have successfully gotten to www. boys privets .com" or www. neked boys .com (notice the spaces). when i happened behind her, she switched to sorry.com and i was none the wiser… at least not for a few days when i realized the sudden clamoring of pop up ads that finally ground my aging, already sluggish system’s start-up to a halt. my freelance graphic design projects have been, thus far, set back by 36 hours and this blog, that i have been itching to get back to, has transformed itself into this new, necessary writing.

it is said that adulthood is simply a state of recovery from childhood. it could therefore be said that success as an adult might be measured by our success in recovering things lost. as an incest survivor, i find my greatest means for recovery in activism involving plights of women and young girls. as a single mother, i constantly to negotiate, even calculate, what i can offer to those efforts to the outer world. most immediately, my quest is to raise a healthy daughter and son who survive their childhoods unscathed… aside from the counseling sessions they might spend recovering from birth order issues, my divorce from their dad, and the failings of the american economy. so, needless to say, i do understand tanya’s natural progression and inquisition about sex/sexuality. but i struggle with whether or not her engagement is the product of a natural curiosity of a child born in this over-sexed, over-stimulated society or if she is showing signs of dysfunction imposed on her from a more direct, more immediate source.

i did alert her mother to the incident and i plan to have a separate talk with tanya about trust. but there are painful questions and answers that might only be answered over time. i, again, pray that the battalions we’ll call “tanya”, “stacy”, “sam” don’t become casualties or POWs of this never-ending war upon us. my prayer is that we find ourselves within ourselves, lace up our bootstraps, put on our armor and fight.

i wrote and co-performed the following piece --under the facilitation of anchor artist sharon bridgforth and the direction of laurie carlos--this past spring with the kick-ass sisters of the austin project--a collaboration born of dr. joni l. jones/omi oshun, between scholars, artists and activists to create art for social change.

be fierce, lovelies. be fierce.

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shrapnel

“Although rape as a weapon of war has existed for as long as war, in today's conflicts around the world it is taking a particularly heavy toll on women.”
--from the article “Rape Now Taking the form of Genocide,” The Japan Times, August 14, 2004


I.
this girl
eight the first time
she evaded her skin
retreated from her bed
to camouflage herself
in midnight corners
that harbor her fugitive
from her own innocence

this girl
unaware of what pieces of herself are lost
which limbs will grow back
what syndrome will thwart her growth
what it means anymore to not know

it is this girl

not the failing economy
not the fatigued and fatherless households
not the flailing red white and blue ribbons on car antennas
or affixed to beds of pick ups and minivans

but her
this girl
she reminds me
that we are at war.

ii.
war looks different these days

some trenches resemble tract homes
tree -lined drives
cul-de-sacs
½ acre lots with 3 tree-lings on each

others

single/multi/extended families
sectioned eight ways
between liquor stores and Baptist churches
shrapnel lining streets
where shoeless vagrants pine for pennies
will work for anything edible

soldiers are
preschoolers
prepubescent
premenstrual
preteen
pre anything adult
latchkeys
casualties
who learn to live with a lack of

these soldiers
bury themselves nightly
craft foxholes of flannel and linens
prisoners of war
praying from morning to morning
submission silence amnesia
tactics for sub/urban warfare where
survival means more than memory

they plead for stays from sexual execution
for just one more day
to trust
before wounded and dying wolves
in sheep’s clothing
feed on their need
brothers uncles fathers steps and grands
cousins once removed
sisters aunties mothers grand and steps
friends of the family
wolves, for whom real love is
as distant a memory
as a mother’s womb
as distant as living

iii.
living names plaster newspapers and war memorials

this girl
this Eve, this Elizabeth, this nine-year-old girl in El Cajon, this Jessica, this fifteen-year-old boy in school closet, this Ida, this Kimberly, this Adam, this eight-month-old baby in Africa; this Edward, this Ryan, this ten-year-old boy in Tampa, this Jane Doe, this six-year-old girl on school bus in New Mexico, this JonBenet, this ten-year-old girl in Arizona, this Polly, this Samantha, this John Doe, this Jane Doe, this Jimmy, this Bonita, this Shia

this girl and
this girl and
this boy and
this eight year old girl

iv.
my daughter is eight
she is consumed with bratz dolls
finally fashion
she covers her eyes when bodies go bare
still finds shock in four-letter words
giggles at what grown ups do
asks too many questions
she knows what private parts are
what boundaries mean
i pray her wits are about her
or a letter opener near
the day some dreamy eyed creeper
with a safe sounding biblical name
joseph, michael, john, david, abel, samuel or frank
tries to persuade her into submission silence amnesia
cajole her from being
“Salihah”; the pious, virtuous, upright one

she came into the world
eyes open, engaged
I knew
she had been here before
she would never walk alone
her roots are far stronger than the world
above this earth she belongs to
she will not wilt

this girl
my girl

i will teach her to fight


©2005 by Shia Shabazz Barnett