Rapping Not Wrapping, Wrapping not Rapping

I'm a middle-aged white woman
who had to grow up fast.

Sometimes hard came wrapped in a bow.
Sometimes hard came with a dollhouse.
Sometimes hard came in a nice neighborhood
with nice clothes
and people telling you
that you had nothing to complain about.

Made to be hard.
Then told I was too hard.
Too difficult.
Too much.

So I battled each day to live
even when my voice stayed buried in my stomach
like a fist.

I played my cards.
Pretty face.
Pretty hair.
I lost weight the hard way.
I tried to make myself smarter the hard way.
I tried love the hard way.

But sometimes I touched the edge of something else.
A little Missy Elliott.
A little Erykah Badu.
A little Mary J. Blige.

My mom accidentally gave me a Mary J. Blige CD
but I loved it anyway.
Because I heard her voice
and I knew what was behind it.

The tears.
The anger.
The sadness underneath it all.
The trying to come up on top.

My family was running from the trailer park.
Trying to claw our way toward something better.
Toward a version of ourselves
that looked more acceptable.
More polished.
More safe.

But there we are —
not versed in the ways other people are.
So we mask.
We bury the country.
We bury the urban.
We bury the alcohol,
the beatings,
the abuse,
the violence,
the confusion.

Be a lady
but be easy.
Be pretty
but not vain.
Be smart
but not intimidating.
Be desirable
but not difficult.

Nothing is easy.

And still,
we see each other.

On a street in New York City.
In Norfolk.
In Richmond.

We know each other by the look in the eye.
By the way we wear toughness
under lip gloss.
By the way we put in our earbuds,
pull up our hood,
and keep moving.

No one needs to know.

Life is about beats.
Keeping rhythm.
Making something beautiful
out of what should have broken us.

We are still here.
Still walking.
Still trying.

Still wrapping it all up
in a bow.