Originally published April 15, 2009
Kiss your grandmas
Little Red Riding Hood
is really Shaniqua in white face.
Every professional Manolo Blahnik buying,
Jimmy Cho wearing,
Vera Wang browsing sista
bumping her Blackberry
on the streets of Manhattan.
She’s that mama in the front row
of chemistry class
with stern lips
and bloodshot eyes
sipping Red Bull in her right hand
and notetaking in her left.
The road to grandma’s house
was never paved with reverent cedar
autumn fanfare
and songbirds
cracked concrete,
rotting needles
and sirens
Shrill sirens signaled,
“you’re almost there.”
But the wolves
Oh, the wolves were real.
Leaving the house couldn’t truly
be called an escape.
It was a metamorphisis not unlike that
of Peter Parker to Spiderman
Bruce Wayne to Batman.
You need your mask
or in Shaniqua’s case
a cape.
Not just any cape,
a crimson, blood-stained
garment to shield your head
and watch your back.
That basket?
In that basket, smelling of
sugary, wholesomeness
Grenades.
To counteract the land mines.
Not all of us
make it from youth
to wisdom.
Society engraves chalk line
memorials for the
ones who get lost.
But for the Michelles,
Oprahs, Sherry’s, Nikkis
Angelas, and Stephanies
who make it to grandma’s,
their are fourtune cookies.
Fortune cookies
filled with destined
promises. Swallow
them whole.
As for the ones still
on the journey
trade those babygirl
Mary Janes for running shoes
and steel-toed boots.
Switch out according
to the marking on
the trees.
Keep your peripherals
as sharp as diamonds
cut first
ask for names later.
When you reach the clearing.
Let the wind blow tear gas
over your shoulders.
Kiss your grandmas.
Let her tell you stories.