YOU RECOGNIZE ME

about auntie legs, being 8 years old and being seen by accident.

A big sloppy kiss. He sucks his bottom teeth first to call me. This is the language of my grandmother and your grandmother. When our grandmothers suck their teeth it is to say what words and rooms do not allow. How many times and places are we allowed to say fuck you?

When I told my grandmother Amma kept coming around crying at the window until Papa called the police on her, she sucked her bottom teeth into her throat then followed up with, Go wash your hands. That’s all my grandmother needed to do to show me she was devastated like I was devastated. 

Little girl and old woman. I seesawed on her strong wrinkled calves, her purple varicose veins. I am too old to be doing this, I am 8. 

I am in school. There is a new teacher with bright red hair and tight office skirts. After a few weeks in Spring, she calls to me at recess. “What is your name,” she asks. “Are you new? I have never seen you before.” 

I tell her I am not the sort of person to be seen or found anywhere. I am in Ms. Oshiro’s class. I like to wear my hair in a long plait and my best friends are Laxmi who wears high top converse, Aida who listens to everything Laxmi says, and Vay who draws intricate comics about everyone in class. Have you seen us before? People forget that we are here because we are here.

The red haired teacher puts her lips into her mouth and says “It’s nice to meet you.” I can tell I made her feel weird because she doesn’t say anything to me at all about being invisible or her seeing me by accident.

My mother at the window wailing, her arms outstretched. My grandmother sucking her teeth and pulling the curtains.

This is how I live:

I am a ghost. I grow up big and tall. I drink all my school milk and Aida’s too. I recite the prayers I am supposed to recite. People see me in the half second in which they blink. The white girls in the bathroom say, 

What’s her name? She is so ___. They do not suck their teeth. They see me more than I see myself. I look in the mirror. Laxmi laughs and says I have auntie legs— which does not mean thick and strong. It means ______.  I do not look anyone in the eye. I pull the curtains. I ____. 

This is how I live:

I am 23. I push the white baby in the stroller and both young and old white people say what a cute baby. They move aside on the street because they see her, skin as white pinched as raw chicken. They follow me as I walk her. How old is she? What a beautiful girl. 

I stopped smiling at the other nannies at the playground because they don’t smile back. They keep their heads down. I hear them suck their teeth occasionally but we do not make eye contact. We render ourselves invisible, tired. It hurts to be found. What will happen if you recognize us? What does it mean to recognize a stranger? 

I go home after my shift and I get my big kiss. A brown man on a bike sucks a long thread of love at me. He tongue kisses the air. He doesn’t need to say words, he is looking back. He is watching my auntie legs, my tired eyes. I keep my head down. I think about shouting after him “Stop pretending you have never seen me before! I know I am as invisible as I am seen. I know you have seen a face like mine before. I know!” Instead I just go home.