An Untamed State

I am not easy to love but I am well loved. I try to love well in return.

When he finished talking, I said, “Your mother did not deserve the unwanted attentions of a man like my father.” I said, “I did not deserve the unwanted attentions of a man like you. It is often women who pay the price for what men want.

Once upon a time, my life was a fairy tale and then I was stolen from everything I’ve ever loved. There was no happily ever after. After days of dying, I was dead.

because sometimes, to find home, you must first go farther afield.

My mother has often told me there are some things you cannot tell a man who loves you, things he cannot handle knowing.

It is an amazing thing,” my father once told me after Christophe was born, “how much a child loves a parent. That kind of love terrifies me.

When I tried to push him away, he only held on to me more tightly. I have always appreciated how he never lets me go. I need that. My natural instinct is for flight and the safety of solitude.

She grabbed me and pulled me into a warm embrace. Just as quickly she pushed me away. She said, “Thank you for getting on my nerves for so long,” and I said, “You’re welcome, Lorraine.” We have talked three or four times a week ever since. She is family.

My brother tried to sag his jeans until a stranger in the airport grabbed him by the ears and hitched his pants up to their proper place, sucking her teeth and shaking her head.

People love a real tragedy when they think it cannot happen to them.

I looked plenty close, Mireille, and saw many beautiful things but I also saw terrible things. I can’t pretend otherwise. You shouldn’t expect me to.” “Right,

Mona is my best friend. Wherever she has gone, the whole of our lives, I have tried to follow. Michael and I moved to Miami because she was there. Wherever she is feels more like home.

Girl children are not safe in a world where there are men. They need to learn to be strong. There

I shouted, “This is not right,” knowing my words were useless. There’s no room for such distinctions in a country where too many people have to claw for what they need and still have nothing to hold. My

Until that moment, Michael had not understood the vastness of the world and how small a place he held in it,

my hands, my fingers quickly slicking with

What is truly terrifying is the exact knowledge of what will come and being unable to save yourself from it. Grabbing

I wanted to tell him I saw the exact same things he did, that this country was a lot for anyone to take, but it was easier to pretend I didn’t. Back

How could I forget? We had a blast but we were surrounded by misery. That is hard to take. I’m just being honest.” “Michael,

I don’t understand women like you,” he said, winding down. “You could have made things easier for yourself. Would it be so hard to play nice with me?” “I don’t understand men like you. You could have made things easier for me.” “You

You people are all the same. You live in your grand homes looking down on us in the gutter. You think you control everything and can have anything.” “There

I ran through these streets and thought, “This is a Haiti I have never seen or known.” It was a Haiti no one should have to know. I

People like you always choose to absolve yourselves. You are complicit even if you do not actively contribute to the problem because you do nothing to solve it.” I

I stared at the woman who betrayed me. I shouted, “How could you? We are both daughters of Dessalines.” She stood perfectly still. She did not blink. She did not look away with her dry eyes. By

The mother kills one child to feed twelve, and one child to feed eleven, and one child to feed ten until she is left with but one child, whom she also slaughters because she too hungers. Finally, she returns to the middle of a cornfield where she slaughtered her other children, where the bones of their thirteen bodies lay. She slits her own throat because she cannot bear the burden of having done what needed to be done. After telling me this story, Elsa said, “A West Indian woman always faces such choices.” The

I made my choice. There is nothing you cannot do when you are no one.

It is often women who pay the price for what men want.

And now, she knew her husband had lied to her. So many years, following him to so many places, and he had repaid her with such staggering deceit.