Fight!

@shantellewrites Feb 9, 2026 I’ve been in Fight mode my whole life. Can I feel safe before my birthday tomorrow?

My mom walked her 17-yr old self to the hospital in labor. I was born on the ‘fifth’ floor like “Hustle Man”. I was born with a dislocated arm, and my arm had to be pinned up to my opposite shoulder. My crib was in a drawer at my great uncle’s house. My ONE memory of him is years later, when he tried to get me beat for not greeting him when I walked into the kitchen at my great aunt’s house. That means my first home couldn’t have been great. I’ve got two slits above my pussy from a double hernia. That means as a baby I was left without comfort to cry so much, that my insides spilled out. I don’t remember any of this, but they say your body keeps score.

My mom was the smartest in her electronics class, beating out all the middle-aged white men. That’s how she made the best of getting kicked out of highschool, when she became too pregnant. Those guys probably sighed with relief when the black girl left to have her baby and resigned to a statistic. My mom always wanted to be a pilot, but she didn’t know how. She’s naturally smart, and figured the fix would be to make sure her kids knew how. She never told me what any word meant. She told me to look it up. When I tried to skip the snake picture in the Encyclopedia, she made me open it and stare at it. No phobias allowed. We lived at the library. Check out her granddaughter living at the library.

She didn’t care that her family called her crazy. She performed her poems anyway. She made us perform. I recited long poems and famous speeches. I walked with books on my head in heels to prepare for pageants. I sang. Before we had Genius lyrics, she replayed Beenie Man’s “SIm Simma”, till my brother learned it. She and I performed Bob Marley’s Redemption Song at church. She was always so different, I’d die from second-hand embarrassment before she performed vulnerable pieces. To my surprise and relief, she tore it down every time. She wrote her stories, documented her life. My daughter joked that I think I’m Kanye, documenting my life in real time. That's all I know. Now my daughter’s a famous social media influencer, where thousands flock to hear her stories. It’s in her blood.

WE all had fights. My first fight was to protect my being smart. Ripped from the safety of my all white school, my mom had no choice but to send me to Columbus School Day Camp, down the street from the projects my cousins lived in. I remember how beautiful those projects were when they were new. I remember doing service with my mom, hauling garbage bags and garbage bags of dirty clothes out of my cousins apartment once any sign of beauty and grass, and fresh paint was gone from those projects. None of my cousins were at that camp, or I wouldn’t have had to fight.

We stayed inside all day, like most programs in the hood. Outside time is always in some parking lot. I don’t know why we weren’t out on the school playground. Lunch was so nasty with that pizza in the cardboard box that said ‘PIZZA PIZZA PIZZA’, and the bologna sandwiches with big eyes in the meat, but the poor kids loved it. I traded entrees for chocolate milk. The hood is the hood I guess, it was just like trading commissary in jail. The next summer, I’d be outside in a parking lot and have to drop to the ground as this man started shooting at this dude running down the street. I remember seeing the smoke from the gun.

The rule was we played Connect Four and shut the fuck up. Everyone stood in line to play the winner at the long brown lunch table. I sat on the winner’s side facing the line, each kid falling victim to all the two-way tricks I had picked up. Yup, let me drop three on the bottom while you just drop yours above me. Gotcha.

The big fat boy bully got tired of losing. He didn’t want to go back to the back of the line. He told me to “Get up”. I told him, “You gotta beat me first.” He said he was gonna beat me after camp. News spread like lightning that I was gonna fight this boy twice my size at the end of camp. Fighting wasn’t tolerated at my all-white private school, so I’d never even seen one. I thought authority would step in, but one of the counselors was his big sister. She was in the crowd circle that surrounded me after camp, chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”. I never asked for help. I didn’t try to get out of the fight. Thank God I’m Jamaican, I just took the stance of no fear naturally. Plus, I just deep down knew that snitching or punking out would just make me a bigger target. I think I swung first. I must’ve done something right cuz everyone claimed I fought back, that I wasn’t no punk. I fought who they wouldn’t dare fight.

I went home with a big ass knot on my head, only one I’ve ever had. I’ve never broken a bone. My mom was pissed that her pretty pageant daughter had a knot on her head. She yells Jamaican bad words when she’s mad. She never stopped till the next morning when she still had to drop me off to go to work. We went with the metal bat. We rushed to camp that morning, riding on her fury, and she cussed out the counselors and asked me to point out who hit me. To go strike him with the bat. I had enough sense not to, just like I’d have enough sense not to use that same bat on the stripper that had disrespected my babyfather. I always knew me with a weapon would be too dangerous. Too under the jail-ish. I’m not a fighter, but I’m a finisher.

I met that stripper later in life. I got roped into driving some random hoes around by the guy who promised to file my taxes for me. I ended up ripping him off, but in our adventures, I also got to read an amazing book his mother wrote. The first time I knew a nobody could be an amazing writer. My cousin who passed away living in those projects, read me her book as well. We stayed up all night, and I sat on the edge of my seat amazed that she could even imagine such a crazy plot. If I could find that book, it’d be published now.

The crazy plot on these strippers is one of them is in the back seat, the fatter one, not the sickly looking one, is telling this story about how she almost got beat up coming out of the club the sickly one wants to go to. She says this drunk dude slid his debit card down her ass, so she threw a drink on him. Sounds like my babyfather. I’ve had to carry his drunk ass out of the club, while he slept on the side of the stage. He didn’t mention what he did to get the drink thrown on him. I picked up the bat, my cousin, and our bout-it friend (everybody needs a loyal badass like Keisha) and we were there in 20 minutes on Christmas Eve.

And that’s how life works. The truth always comes out. His daughter would eventually see his crazy, even though the custody court magistrates had refused to listen. I’d have to fight him without a lawyer by drafting my own custody agreement in the law library. I never flake out in a fight, though I’ve only won the mental ones. I know I’m too crazy to lose it, so I inhibit myself. I’ve watched my mom lose it too many times. She beat up the two Jamaican dancehall queens next door. She kicked the ladies in the laundromat right in the stomach, clear across the room.

In her downtime, that crazy lady would fight me, but I couldn’t fight back. I’d flee.I never  felt safe, not since the day I was born. Apparently, my body, not my mind, must feel safe to heal.

I’ve been living in fight mode all these years. They say I have to talk to the little girl, but I might have to lift the crying baby from that drawer first, swaddle her in a blanket, and hold her tight like a football, and with her held tight, sprint through her timeline of attackers.