With the Fire on High

by Elizabeth Acevedo

“I think you should write about the one that scares you most. Taking risks and making choices in spite of fear—it’s what makes our life story compelling.”

She seems like a great teacher.

This stuff is complicated. But it’s like I’m some long-division problem folks keep wanting to parcel into pieces, and they don’t hear me when I say: I don’t reduce, homies. The whole of me is Black. The whole of me is whole.

with the fire on high,

Aunt Sarah is my email auntie, the strongest connection to my mother, my kitchen confidante, but she’s never sent money before, never organized that side of the family to send me a gift. I look out the window at the clouds parting in the same way my bad mood is, sunlight peeking through both, and I know for a fact there’s more than one kind of magic in this world.

Beautiful

Before I can ask her why Tyrone wasn’t the one to pick up Babygirl, or why I’m accused of being the irresponsible one but he’s so often excused from having to be as much of a father as I am a mother.

“You’re a nice man, Steve. So kind. I’m going to tell my grandmother to pray for you.” And I hope he can see in my face that I just sprinkled the juju of a spiteful Puerto Rican grandmother all over his life.

We look beautiful and hood and excited to see the world, and none of us are hiding from this world seeing us. All of us shining despite what it took us to earn our way here.

And I know the past isn’t a mirror image of the future, but it’s a reflection of what can be; and when your first love breaks your heart, the shards of that can still draw blood for a long, long time.