African Voices Summer 2017 AV Summer 2017 Digital Issue | Page 11
my big family’s love and laughter, all the vulnerabilities, all the hopes and questions, all the fire spark of early, tentative
temptations flowed through me, flowed out of me — and I hated it.
Then. Then the drumbeats in my feet, the longing to fly that flamed through my limbs, possessed me. The sensation singed
skin, engulfed my anxiety, burnt away my invisible cloak. After that night, dancing became addictive.
Me and my girls, we used to turn up, shut it down right there in Goat Park. While the boys were out on the asphalt, sweating
and cursing, checking bricks and trying to dunk in their throwback Jordans, we would be over by the raggedy ass slide, far
away from crying babies and fussing nannies cussing in their mother tongues, but close enough for the fine boys to see us,
making moves, moving in time, and imitating our favorites. Chanel could fract better than anybody. Her arms and hands
flying in precise, quick fast patterns. Her sharp elbows were arrows that pierced the air, even her long spiraling locs swung
in time to her rhythm. Bijou’s neck and thighs were like that old school silly putty. She could stretch and slide, whine and
grind like she was all water, not b