the adoption of pecola breedlove
By: Jamie Gallo
she ran at first,
for nina had said,
“sweetie you gonna live in a better world
brown baby brown baby brown baby”
pecola did not want to be called brown.
she may have been relegated to the outskirts of town,
stepped on and swept into the cracks of the sidewalk,
exiled to poverty by her own people.
but really, they were not her people,
for she had blue eyes.
it didn’t matter that no one else could see them.
they were the bluest and the prettiest
and that was enough.
and she was not. brown.
so instead nina said,
“unhappy little girl blue”
and nina scooped her up,
(pecola was too old to be scooped up, to be held) (nina did it anyways.)
and she looked deep into pecola’s desperate brown eyes, and said,
“color is a beautiful thing”.
pecola’s body fought,
her limbs thrashing,
fighting the air more than nina to reach the ground.
but pecola couldn’t fight her gaze-
something about nina’s eyes kept her there.
pecola wondered if they ever s t o p p e d ?
she looked deeper and deeper, trying to find an end...
and it was in nina’s deep, defiantly dark eyes,
pecola saw her own.
she saw how they caught the sunlight,
she saw how they were made of ebony.
she saw
how they were just like nina’s.
and suddenly her limbs made peace with air.
she accepted nina’s strong arms enveloping her. (she needed to be held.)
and so she told nina everything.
she told her about the berries and the stains.
and nina said there would be no more strange fruit.
it was not fully true.
but it was what pecola needed to hear.
and from there they went home.
followed by the bluest sky, the only thing
that was blue.