Suddenly I see myself at six years old, jumping rope in a windstorm. Always before I come back, flashes of a future startle me right before I awake. These scenes in my mind break the promises they make; I’m never born so I never get to see them happen in an actual life. This time, I see I’ll have red, green, and black beads hanging on the end of my cornrows, locked in place with a tight tip of aluminum foil. When I bounce up from my toes the beads smack me back in the face. An old woman, maybe my grandma, opens the front door and lets her cooking smells out. She hangs from the tattered screen with her purple duster flying open just enough to see all the brown stardust scattered between her breasts. Who is she? And why do I mind her? She has a cotton white rag wound around her head. She doesn’t have to move her mouth to get me to throw down my rope.

If I have to tell you one more time … is what hereyes say.