My mother and I don't really look alike...not right away. Not the way you can tell with my dad and I with our milk cow brown eyes and stupid jokes that nobody gets. We try. But me and my mom, we are more alike than you would think. Our writing for example. Not the cramped angry style of my father, but rounded and loose, rambling and random, like a drunkenly flitting hummingbird. Fast and yet open, free flowing. And with different styles for everything, with each changing letter a new meaning that most everyone but us overlooks. And other things I can't explain.
Somedays, before my brother came along, we would drive places. It didn't matter where. But we wouldn't really talk at all, as if it had all been said. No, that makes it sound boring. As if it was all being said. We were content, didn't need to speak because we knew. I was going to ask to go to a garage sale, but she already saw the sign and was turning. She was going to ask for fifty cents, but I had already seen the book and was counting. And after all this silence, when we saw these little wooden craft things, I think we got a few stares.
Do you see...? Simultaneous.
...the little dude things? Perfect!
For that one little thing...
...right next to the shelves.
I think the other lady there was about to laugh, but we didn't. We knew.
Yep, that's what I was thinking exactly.

Keith No Last Name

She met him through her friends. Handsome too, and black. I never knew him. Said he drifted with the gang, but it doesn't matter which one. Keith. That's all. Black leather and gang signs. Keith. That's what he told her.
And how was she to know she'd never get another chance to hold him? Gang wars, don't you know. Shots fired, one fatality. Peggy, she hangs out in all the wrong places. Big cities. Madison, Chicago. West Side, East Side. North, South. LA, even. She loves her friends. She parties with them all the time, knows all sorts of people, has lots of fun. And he was just someone she was introduced to. Somebody she met that night. That's right.
That's the story. That's what she said to Sue and Bill. They wouldn't believe and wouldn't want to believe. She he was "no one." No name. Nothing to say about him. Just another "one of them." It's better that way.
Only Peggy can't explain to them why she cared, the hours and hours, for somebody she barely knew. The cold concrete of the city. Nobody but those who won't tell. And maybe if they would've waited, maybe if they hadn't aimed to kill, if they had hit just five inches away, they would know he had only been there to leave. He was saying goodbye to that life. He wasn't the one they wanted.
But what difference does it make? She said he wasn't anything to her. He couldn't be her boyfriend, her fiance, or anything like that. Just another one of them, who grabbed his crotch in time to "Pimp Juice," who should be on his way back to Africa now, who committed crimes just to laugh. Just another gangbanger. You know the kind. The ones who always are in trouble. And what was she doing with those sorts of people anyway? Peggy who was waiting at their apartment, waiting for him to return, because it was getting dangerous in that part of town. It wasn't the place to have a child. How does she explain?
She met him through some friends. Keith with his wild hair and black leather coat. Keith leaving his past life behind for a future.
What does it matter?
He never saw his son. He never knew about the way he grins in just the way his father did, the wild hair, the adorable cherub face. Kevin of the soft brown skin, who will never know his daddy, only because he cared enough to say goodbye.
His name was Keith. And his love will shine on in the eyes of his son, the one he never knew. Kevin maybe will hear his mother and grandparents fight, will wonder, ask, and learn. Daddy--he went to say goodbye...my mommy never heard his voice again.

Lori

Lori is the girl with eyes like roasted chesnuts and curly dyed hair like rusted springs. The people at school think she's wonderful because she's just like her hair and when she walks, she is the sunlight dancing on the water, dark somethings underneath. She skips with a leaden foot.
Her family says to be this way is despicable. Because she found her soulmate with someone of the same gender. She is not supposed to be happy if that is the cost. They remember the Bible and are mad. Not natural, is what they say. Then they won't say more.
Lori, who taught you to be this way? Who taught you to be the ever-flowing fountain of youth? And if I pull you close and brush away your tears, and let you know that someone still loves you, if you just look beyond it all, will you teach me?
I love your reckless carefree ways and those new ideas you tell, where did you come up with them? My aunt says to say such things so young is dangerous, but I want to think just like you, to see the world through your optimistic cynacism, just like that. You are facinating, a conundrum, an opposite unto yourself.
Your mother, who is not your mother anymore, not since that one Friday, not since the day you told her about the man of shadows and who you really are, not since she called you that name and told you you deserved it and all you wanted was her love and you cried, you cried, Lori, not since then, you don't have a mother to run to, to talk to when it's all crazy like this again. There is no one to tell you it will all be alright, and know it.
The stories your parents tell to the rest of the family, they're not true. You go upstairs to your room alone with your lips sealed as if no one was listening, as if no one could hear your sobbing, Lori. What kind of thoughts run through your mind when you sit alone like that? And why do you always have to act now, around your family, be so blank and sad and quiet and nothing like you really are? You become a different Lori. You put up your hair, you look just like the rest. Your chesnut eyes don't smile, Lori. You glance to the side and speak softly of things no one can argue.
Lori, do you sometimes wish you didn't have to act this way? Do you wish your stairs would one day keep climbing and take you far away from this life, far away and maybe you would come along a new family, new friends. And if you told them what you felt, they would open their arms, they would smile, smile just like a rising sun, and maybe they wouldn't agree, but they would respect your ideas, and that's all that would matter. There'd be no half hidden truths, no sideways glances, no angry sad silences between you. Only hugs and listening and plenty of caring. And your chesnut eyes could smile, Lori. You could breathe again and open your eyes and never worry that you won't be forgiven for something you never did wrong. You could be and not worry what people were thinking because you never belonged to this closed-minded group anyway and nobody could make you cry and nobody would think you're bad because you like to think and think. And no one would blame you if you said what you felt or they saw you with someone else, with somebody you loved without someone saying it is shameful, without the whole world waiting for you to screw up even though all you wanted, all you wanted, Lori, was to be free and to love and to love and to love, and no one could say that was wrong.

A Voice of My Own