JOURNAL ENTRY: NANA SAID RUN SO I DID AND COLLAPSED INTO A THICKET 2026

 

I had cut my hand and Nana’s house too when I was even younger.  I had been behind her house and there had been these kittens, and they had hidden themselves in this old makeshift fenced in kennel.  It was made of chicken wire, and the grass and weeds had grown in through the hexagonal shapes.  I was pulling on some of that interwoven wire when I cut my hand and I got scared.  I was worried that my Nana would be upset and then she would call my mother to come get me from Irving.  This time I had been with my mammy and nana for a few weeks, and I didn’t want to go back to Glenda.  She had brought me up to Weatherford just her and I.  She had started in on Nana quickly about inheritance and I once again was a pawn.  Glenda was attempting to extort through coercion right there in nana’s house.  My mother had ripped my shirt off and had her left forearm around my throat as she dug her nails into my back with her right hand.  My screams had been sharp and piercing at first, but I recall how in a short time I was on my knees and panting after expelling all my breath.  She had upped her anti this time and rubbed something into my wounds that made my back arche and spasm in a manner that felt like each individual muscle had come alive and was fighting for freedom from this pain.  My attempts to breathe were poor and I was lying against Glenda’s left leg, and her forearm on my throat had released.  She was telling nana that she would do it again and then like a whisper in the wind I could hear nana shouting “run”.  She said this many times and then it was like it had become some type of magical command and I found the strength to crawl for the door.  Then Glenda doused me with her concoction, and it smelled like ‘absorbing junior’.  There was a lingering scent of jalapeno in the air, and the mixture had a thickness to it.  Its contents did not roll off my skin but fell off the sides of my back like a thick sauce.  Glenda continued to rub it into those wounds as I crawled, and she kicked my ribs excessively.  It was when my mother raced towards nana to stop her from leaving the scene in the living room and was plopping her down in the dining room chair.  I had reached the door and had to use the doorknob to standup and my whole rear torso was resisting me and then I looked back and saw that Glenda was holding nana’s face as she attempted to pour this mix into her mouth.  Nana had somehow turned her head slightly and then could see me with one eye and she raised her right hand to point me toward the door.