La Familia 2 Read Free Page A

women’s family Samaritan shelter in Harlem: no fighting at all. If caught fighting in the shelter, it was immediate eviction, and being evicted was the last thing I needed in my life when I had my daughter. But despite that rule, there was constant friction between Dietra and me, hard glances thrown at each other, arguments and bickering, but physically we never laid hands on each other. But the pot was boiling between us and I knew it was inevitable that a fight was brewing. She was just itching to find a reason and try to fuck me up, and I was going to find a reason to fight back and knock that bitch’s teeth out.
    As I passed Dietra in the hallway, she glared at me and uttered, “Fake-ass bitch.”
    I was tempted to snap back, but I had Eliza in my arms and I couldn’t risk endangering my daughter for this stupid bitch. I had to be better than that. And the fact that she had the audacity to talk trash while I had my daughter in my arms goes to show the type of ignorance and stupidity she was about.
    I frowned heavily, locked eyes with the bitch for a moment, and kept it moving. She didn’t want any part of me. Yeah, my name was Mouse, and I was small, but I was fierce like a tiger and my hands needed to be registered because I was lethal with them and Dietra was about to find out the hard way not to fuck with me. Because the bitches who used to underestimate me back in the days give me nothing but respect now when they saw me, because, like Dietra, they came at me for a fight and I held my own, tearing out many weaves, blacking eyes, breaking noses, and sending bitches to the emergency room when they came trying me.
    I kept myself humble. It wasn’t the place or time for a fight. I had too much to lose. Dietra walked into the TV room and I simply stared in the face of my baby girl. Her beauty and innocence kept me calm.
    The minute I walked into my room I put Eliza in her bed and then pulled out my pen and pad and started to write as I sat on my bed near the small window overlooking the block. I yearned to write. Expressing my love, pain, sorrows, grief, and much more through rhymes and poetry was always going to be my passion. When I had nothing else, I still had my writing, my soul to take, my heart to wake, and my mind to say. I didn’t want to ever give up on my dream, no matter what. Yes, I had a setback, a few over the years, but I had faith that success was going to happen to me.
    I started with: “I’m my worse behavior, crime of the time, love of war, endless grind feeling gone, angry at time feeling time ain’t never on my side, father time absence like the biological in my life, it’s always dark on this side of town, sun don’t come around no more, eclipse was what I was born on, look up and stars seemed too distance from me, black is all I see, the black is on me. Who is I, me and mines, turning my black into some success in me.”

Chapter Two
    Sammy
    Motherhood was becoming a challenge to me, from my son catching an ear infection, then having a high fever and rushing him to the emergency room, along with him teething and then trying to put him to bed every night was a challenge. And when he cried, he cried very loud, with the lungs on my little man feeling like a blow horn was in my room. He was becoming a handful at six months, but that didn’t mean I didn’t love my son Danny to death. He was my world and my heart, and the most precious thing I ever had on this earth, more precious than diamonds and gold. I adored the way my son’s small eyes lit up when he smiled and laughed while he looked up at me. The way Danny laughed when I would tickle him made me light up, too. The way he fell asleep when I held him in my arms always made me feel so motherly. He was my baby boy, and he was going to grow up to become my big strong man, my protector, and I knew he would become the one man in my life who wouldn’t break his mother’s heart.
    I