I wrote a haiku in sixth grade.  

Two lines end with the same word, water, which was not what Ms. Tolley taught us to do, but it seemed right to me for my haiku.  

It was a smooth move for a sixth-grader, I think.  

She wrote excellent on it.  

I still have it at the house.  

In tenth grade, I wrote a story about a snitch living scared of the man he put in prison.  

The snitch kept saying, Marvin’s out of the joint, Marvin’s out of the joint. 

The snitch was terrified; he knew he was a goner.  

In the end twist, I had Marvin-the-convict confront the snitch and thank him for snitching. 

Then Marvin stepped out of a third-story window into suicide.  

Marvin knew he was a danger to society, so he ended his own life so he could do no more harm. 

Dramatic, I know.  

Teenagers always write about suicide or death.   

I got an ‘A’ and was hella happy.  

I showed my dad my story, he scowled:

You oughta write about happy things.  

Me, under my breath:

Alright Pops, you don’t get to read anything else from me.

This held true until I turned fifty, when I let him read a memoir piece. 

My dad is a preacher and literally sitting at the alter listening to him preach gave me a writing voice. 

To have him rip my early writing self was the type of shit I couldn’t let go.

And then this hell happened:  on 09/28/1992, My Springstowne Junior High Bestie, my Hogan Senior High Ace, Marcella, was cancelled by her boyfriend on Vervais Avenue.  

He put two caps in her head. 

He put a cap in her mother’s head. 

He put a cap in his own head.  

This was in front of their daughter, who was playing in the yard. 

It was described in the newspaper as an unanticipated crime of passion by a loving boyfriend.

Enraged, everybody who knew and loved Marcella stormed the Vallejo Times-Herald.

The reporter modified the story with an article the next day, calling it the straight-up murder-suicide by abusive domestic partner that it was.  

I poemed the funeral:

Marcella

Had new clothes on the last time

because her lips had seams

and her eyelids were painted shut.

And the Reverend sang the sisters out their seats 

loud as Hell, Amen. But nobody woke.

Then they wept like they knew her

and watched her grow up from skinny pimples and smile,

Amen.

There were two bullets in her head and they never let on; 

but she would never comb her hair like that.

And then we lined up for the last look, so

I craved cherry jolly ranchers stuck in them big pickles

like every day after school in ninth grade.

And when she said, try to catch me white boy

you aint fast as me 

catch me white boy.

You oughta write about happy things, indeed. 

Not when these other things keep

speaking, I won’t…