Red at the Bone

by Jacqueline Woodson

Maybe this was the moment when I knew I was a part of a long line of almost erased stories.

This was their perfect moment. Another almost-erased history unaborted. And this house with its hundred-plus years. This house with its stained-glass and leaded windows. This house with its generations cheering, saying, Dance, y’all and Ashé and The ancestors are in the house, say what? I and everything and everyone around me was their dream come true now. If this moment was a sentence, I’d be the period.

Look how beautifully black we are. And as we dance, I am not Melody who is sixteen, I am not my parents’ once illegitimate daughter—I am a narrative, someone’s almost forgotten story. Remembered.

Heroin happened to him. Heroin made your daddy king of every party we went to.

Lord, I will love that man’s smile till I die.

Does it sound crazy to say I looked at her and saw the world falling into some kind of order that I didn’t even know it was out of?

She felt red at the bone—like there was something inside of her undone and bleeding.

Sex is easy for a fag, girl. It’s the love I’m after. Bring on the love.

Today you got introduced to society, Melody, he says sleepily. Shoot, I love that people think the world is even halfway ready for what we about to bring.

Something about memory. It takes you back to where you were and lets you just be there for a time.