Afraid of the Dark

Guyleigh Johnson

• Publisher: Pottersfield Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781988286525
• eBook ISBN: 9781988286532
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

Through prose and poetry, Guyleigh Johnson tells the story of sixteen-year-old Kahlua Thomas. An absent father and an alcoholic mother leave Kahlua feeling neglected, but her real pain stems from being black. She finds it hard surviving in a poor neighbourhood and even tougher society. Trapped by her own insecurities, she cannot relate to the person in the mirror. She believes that if she doesn't acknowledge her thick hair, big lips, and dark skin maybe, just maybe, she'll be able to blend in. Yet the lack of diversity, equality, and heritage in her world makes her more intrigued about the black roots she tries to stray away from. With a hard life at home, on the streets, and in school she finds an escape during her grade ten history class through writing poetry. Hiding in the back of the class, she writes, passionately expressing and releasing emotions about identity, home, community, culture, and forgiveness. All Kahlua wants is freedom, whatever that really means.

Broke or Broken?

It’s a nice day – the sun is shining hard. As I lay there with my eyes closed, I can feel the hot beaming rays stinging my skin. I see palm trees, blue skies with even brighter water; it’s so clear I can actually see the fish approach the shore. The sand is massaging my back as I lay there allowing God’s creations to bless me.

Suddenly I feel sad. I know what you’re thinking: why are you sad in paradise? As I look around this foreign place I don’t see anyone that looks like me. I’m alone. Sad and overwhelmed with emotion because I left everyone back home. Why couldn’t I bring them with me? My whole life I wanted to escape the place I felt kept me trapped. Now that I’m away, guilt consumes me. I’m empty.

I start to think about my ancestors. I wonder if this is how they felt during the Underground Railroad. I mean, clearly everyone couldn’t be saved and not everyone could come. When they finally made it to safe houses, did they grieve the ones they left, or the ones they lost? Did guilt consume them too? A cold tear slides down my cheek all the way to my neck and causes me to shiver. The heat around me isn’t enough to melt the coldness my heart feels. Frozen. Free yet trapped in my thoughts. I begin to cry for the brothers and sisters I left.

Suddenly someone calls my name. I turn to see no one there. I hear it again. Still nothing. Then it gets closer and louder.

“Kahlua … KAHLUA! … Kahlua Tiana Thomas!” (Only I would be lucky enough to have an alcoholic mother that named me after her favourite drink.)

“What?” I reply with so much sarcasm I’m surprised she doesn’t slap the attitude off my face.

“What did you just say, little girl?”

“Uhm … I mean yes, Mom.”

“Get your ass up and get ready for school. What – you thought you was special or something?”

Reality hits: I’m not in paradise; I’m still in the projects. Laying in a busted-up bed beside a window with sheets for curtains. I start to cry for real this time, but my tears aren’t cold anymore – they’re warm because I’m so angry. Not because I left anybody but because I feel left. Like someone else got up out of here and went to paradise without me.

As I get up and get ready for school I can’t think about anything else except the fact that I hate it. I hate everything these days and no, it’s not because I’m going through my teenage years. I just hate life. I can’t remember any happy moments. I can’t even remember the last time I smiled. Here it’s just me and my mother. She didn’t want kids – I was the mistake she couldn’t get rid of. I feel like every day she reminds me of her resentment. I cook, I clean, and I shop for groceries whenever her cheque from welfare comes in. The majority of that money gets spent on liquor, can you believe it? Our fridge carries the bare necessities yet we have a bar in our kitchen. It’s bare too but not because she doesn’t buy any liquor but because she drinks it all with her “friends.” I basically raise myself and that’s still not enough; it’s like my existence annoys her the most. I hate my mom. You probably think that’s sad to say but it’s true. She calls me names, she hits me, and sometimes she locks me out the house.

Where’s my father? I wonder where he is my own self. When I was little I used to get on my knees by the edge of the bed and pray to God that he’d come and save me. He never did. My mom blames me for that too. She said the moment he saw me he walked out the door and never came back. Way to kill a child’s spirit – because of that I barely look people in the face when I talk to them, especially if I like them because I’m afraid they’ll leave. Sometimes people, like the elders in the community, think I’m being disrespectful, but I’m not.

I hate myself too. I often think what life would be like if I wasn’t here. Maybe my mother would have never met my father, never had a baby, never started drinking, and she would be happy.

I tried to kill myself once. Okay, twice. The second time I was nine years old, I heard about kids getting bullied and killing themselves. I thought these kids must be crazy. You mean to tell me someone’s picking on you and you’re not fighting back? Plus you’re going home where you have a mom and dad that love you, supper cooked, a nice room, money, and you’d rather be dead? Hell, let’s switch lives: you come here and let me go there. I’ll beat someone’s ass every day to live that life.

Where I’m from kids make fun of each other all the time. We literally talk about each other’s mothers, fight, get up, and move on. In the black community you’ll catch an insult faster than you’ll receive a compliment but we deal with it. Having a mother that doesn’t acknowledge you, living in a crooked neighbourhood, choosing which meal is the most important ’Cause you know you won’t get all three – now that is some suicidal...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Author’s Note
• Broke or Broken?
• Restoration
• Undertone
• Home (Motherland)
• Be Who?
• heART forGIVES
• Remember What They Promised Me?
• Freedom
• At Lunch They Lynch
• Sister Sorrow
• Three Strikes
• Stay in the Lines
• Sit in, Shut up!
• Freedom Bus
• Living While Black
• Ownership
• Symbol of my Success
• Take a Knee
• Buy the Hood and Build it Back Up
• Philando Castile
• Kinfolk
• Root Of It All
• I Hate That
• Trick or Treat?
• Reveal
• Hood Princess
• Longing
• Sacrifice
• Run
• Men Get Choices
• Nothing Happened
• Taken 56
• Clown of the Court
• Party Girl Prejudice
• I’m Sorry That My Breasts Offend You
• What If We Were Boys?
• If We Only Knew
• Say Less
• People Say I’m Intimidating
• Shoplifter
• Womine
• Burnt Out
• We Love Like Women and Fight Like Men
• Tables Turn
• Shh …
• I Think It’s Funny
• LOVE
• Soulace
• Crowns
• Burdens versus Blessings
• We Should’ve Listened
• Devastated Devotion
• Candy
• Blue Eyes
• I Want to Say
• What’s White is Right, Right?
• Loss or Lost?
• Debrief
• Hush Little Baby
• We Had To Be
• Swiper
• Uncles’ Sons
• Man versus Monster
• Hustler’s Prayer
• Fantasy Father
• Nine to Nine
• Every Time
• One Out of Three
• State of Emergency
• The Cycle
• Corruption
• Cops and Robbers
• Where I Live Chaos is Normalized
• Staying In or Coming Out?
• New Knowledge
• Soldier
• The Kid in the Corner
• Dartmouth North Library
• Unapologetic
• Caterpillar
• Afterword
• Thank You
• Back Cover