HOME
by Messiah Cristine
Part A: The Makings of The House.
Home:
Manzil. Hogar. Huis. Papa. Mama. Brutha. Bruh. Homie. Mannnnnnnnn. Sis. 191st Street. Pembroke Pines. Windows. Dade County. Panthersville Road. Reflections. County Line Road. Converings. Woodward Street. Vredenburgh. Ocean Avenue. A Kiss. Candler Road. Neckbone. Bronxville. Liberty City. Yonkers. Jersey City. Clavicle. Atlanta. Skin. Georgia. Black. Nassau. Freeport. Spanish. Wynwood. Curry. Opa Locka.Carol City. Braiding shops. Aunt Kathy’s hands. Velma’s Gold tooth. In the dark, Star Creek apartments.
Where is home?
In your voice.
Where is home?
Near the sun.
-Rachel Griffins.
It is 2009, and I am sitting on my father’s shoulders. He holds my legs tightly, as I am wrapped around his head, looking out at the wide array of garments, blue beads, crystalized masks, feathers girrating in the wind back and forth.The pretty women are smiling back at me, their hips licking the air, their cheeks highlighted with glitter, all of their eyes wishing, the moon bowing at the grace of their necks, the towering of men following the shape of their own shadows that lead towards an unknown force that is pulling them forward, it is Junkanoo, and everyone's body is creating a drum.
I am nine years old and I am watching an older man pour rum into a cup of coconut milk, he winks.. I ask my dad if I can have another can of goombay punch, and he hands me his.
The next day I remember walking with both parents, each one of them holding a hand of mine. We stopped to watch three school boys rip off their school uniforms and beg their grandfather to jump into the ocean. They pleaded for minutes, to no avail, and after a few more pleas they were finally allowed into the open, wide water. I remember watching their dark bodies jump off of what seemed to be the edge of the world, and i was mesmerized watching the sun design iridescent droplets on their backs. They brought up a conch shell, and handed it to their grandfather. My nine year old eyes watched in awe as the older man cracked the shell open.
He reached inside her shell, and pulled everything out of her.
Her contents now in his hands, writhing, birthing puss,
the scintillating makings,
her eyes curious for a place of sun.
I often feel like I was born in this moment. In the birthings of a shell, writhing and shifting in the wide open place we call the sun, listening, stretching for a place of promise.
Where is home?
Child, it’s falling now, they sky.
Where is home?
In your own hands.
Part B: Where I First Felt Home, Or Her Long Fingers
Opa Locka had long roads that lead to nowhere, and women who wore gold teeth. Velma had a hard gold cap, and her house was filled with mirrors.
“I gotta house full of mirrors, cause when I see myself, I’m home.”
My forehead greased, she weaves another braid onto my head, and I listen to her yell demands at her kids, manage bills, she is a woman growing, making, breathing.
“Why you gotta mouth full of gold teeth?”
“Cause God gave me his last kiss”.
I smile
. Velma was one of the first women to make me feel beautiful.
Part C: Definition of Home (According to Google)
noun
1. 1.
the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household.
adjective
1. 1.
relating to the place where one lives.
"I don't have your home address"
2. 2.
(of a sports game) played at the team's own field or court.
"their first home game of the season"
adverb
1. to or at the place where one lives.
"what time did he get home last night?"
verb
1. 1.
(of an animal) return by instinct to its territory after leaving it.
"a dozen geese homing to their summer nesting grounds"
2.
move or be aimed toward (a target or destination) with great accuracy.
Part D: A Snapshot
In the car, we are all praying, heads bowed, I ask my father where the water is.
“How long will it take to get to the beach?
To the water?
To the edge?”
He smiles, and it starts to rain.
“We are there right now, close ya eyes....”
I am nine, and I swear the car sails.
Part C: New York (Movement)
New York. 17. I was taught transit, movement, how to drift from one place to another and catch sight. I have learned much about myself through movement. Waiting, to return home or leave home, is often the hardest thing, but it does require movement. Searching for myself in the reflections on the subway, a plane window, or in another person’s smile, I looked for home everywhere, until finally the only home i found, that kept its place, was in my body. Sometimes the idea of home leaves my body, and I am forced to find it’s roar again.
Part D: Re-membering(s)
I remember falling in love, I remember catching clear water.
One summer, a bunch of bodies showed up on the beach. All the limbs were from cuba. I remember running away from an iguana. I remember iguana soup.
Part E: Thoughts At 3am about “Home”
Where is home?
Child, it’s falling now, they sky.
Where is home?
In your own hands.
A home may be a canopy, a place
draped from different sections of a
bigger architecture, that brings all these
makings of the self together, and
hopefully, it is always there to catch
you.
home,
meant salting things, cementing truth and learning over and over again what it meant to find a place that was yours. Florida and the Bahamas are two areas of land surrounded by water, and i have often felt as if my idea of home was just land, a large surface area, surrounded by a body of water, docked in the middle of the ocean.
An Index.
Every bone has fallen.
The large pool of blood.
Conch shells arise,
And the birth happens,
the window catches shape, and i am asked to
Pray over and over and over again,
So i ask the woman with the gold teeth, and she tells me that the God
In her throat
will send me goombay punch
And to trust that, when
the kissing starts,
a lover falls a part,
the beads soaked in rum,
the body floats,
And every drum
of the self is heard.