NOLES
I could hear Ayida praying and feel her spirit moving around the room like she did everyday.
I had no better way to say it. Physically I wasn't awake, but spiritually I was. I was stuck in a dark, closed place that smelled like candle smoke and hospital bleach, where her voice cut through it occasionally. Every time. She was keeping my soul right here with her, refusing to let go, holding me in place with them soft hands and that hard faith that scare mutha fuckas who never had to face it. She showed up like clockwork, bathin’ me, groomin’ me, combin’ my hair even when my head felt heavy as a cinderblock, talkin’ to me like nothing had changed, like I was just resting after a long night.
She whispered Creole prayers in my ear, He veil touched my face as she kissed me often.
and I swear I could feel her prayer beads like they had weight in my chest.
P came in all broken, tryna to hide it. That nigga cried.
I ain't gon' sugarcoat it. He cried like he was born with the tears in him and just now got permission to let them out.
Started and stopped. Started again. Tried to play it off by telling me old stories, dumb shit we'd done, fights we won, nights we laughed so hard it sounded like we was chokin.
His palms was hot when he put them on my shoulder.
He kept saying, "You hear me, brudda? You hear me?
" like he was asking life to sign for a package.
I heard him. And I hated that I couldn't tell him.
Juste sat quiet, I'm sure that nigga eyes was mean as could be.
He didn't have to say vengeance for me to hear it.
It was there in the way he breathed, the way the chair complained under him like his weight was an argument he was havin with gravity.
He didn't touch me long. Just enough to mark me safe, like a man checkin his stash, makin sure it hadn't moved.
When he left, the room cooled down, like he took heat with him.
Pops and Jules came. Not as often. When they did, they brought talk with them, shop talk, street talk, anything but the talk that mattered.
Daddy's voice got sharp around the edges when he mentioned the condition, I was in.
Jules smelled like weed smoke and rain. Their words didn't come all the way into me. Maybe I didn't let them.
It was killing me feeling like I couldn't wake up no matter how much I tried.
You ever run underwater in a dream? Push hard as you can and barely move?
That's how it was. Every night I pressed up against whatever this was, and it pushed back, slow and patient like time itself.
The more I fought, the further waking up slid away.
I'd get close enough to feel the skin of the world, close enough to smell morning on Ayida's hair, and then I'd slip again.
Back down. Back into the dark that wore my name like it owned it.
Sometimes I drifted toward where the world was and got caught on the edges of other people's sounds. Nurses humming gospel to themselves while they wiped me clean, little, tired hymns on the exhale. Shoes squeaking. Wheels of a cart rolling away slow. Mama’s voice rising and then somebody shushing her.
A doctor saying "neurological" and "stable" and a list of words you only learn when life goes sideways.
I learned them without wanting to. Words get in you when your body is still. They know when you can't run.
Other times it was worse. The dark brought me back to the lot where I fell.
That long hum in my ears became the night.
That beep became the gun. I remember the first shot like a bright door.
I walked through it, and everything went quiet.
Like a church waiting for the first note.
Body cold, then hot. Hands clumsy. Vision narrow at the edges like the world was tunneling itself toward a single point.
Gravity got disloyal. The ground rushed up and the bricks had a smell I couldn’t forget.
I went down cussing in my head. No sound came out.
Somebody said my name that wasn't my name.
It was like they was trying it out to see how it fit.
I wasn’t fearful but know this: I was mad.
Mad at the way my body didn't answer me. Mad at how small the world got in that parkin lot. Mad at whoever picked the place, whoever timed it, whoever told them where we’d be.
But then Ayida's voice floated in like it had wings on it.
Soft, sure. That sainted little "Noles," like she was calling me to the table to come eat.
And the dark, It hiccupped, man. Stumbled in its own house.
That's when I knew her prayers wasn't just words.
They were rope. They were chain. They were a woman's two hands grabbing the scruff of my soul like you catch a dog tryna to run the wrong way.
"Rete avè m," she said. Stay with me. I stayed.
But stayin wasn't the same as resting. My body was still, but my mind stayed pacin behind the glass, wearin grooves in the dark.
It ran in circles, hungry ones. Worried ones.
Tried to piece together what happened, who moved what, and why.
No doubt about it, we got set up. The only question that mattered was who.
The thought looped so hard it burned. The harder I tried to pull memory out of that fog, the more it fought me.
My brain felt like a scratched record stuck between truth and nightmare.
Still, I could feel that betrayal in my bones.
Betrayal had a smell that never leaves you once you breathe it in.
Only a few people knew we was meeting with Abdul that morning.
That's what kept biting at me. The circle was tight.
Family tight. So whoever leaked that information they was close enough to shake my hand.
Maybe even hug me. Or maybe a mutha fucka had been sittin up plottin.
I kept replaying that day in my head like I was standing just outside my own skin.
Her voice cracked open that quiet like a flare in fog.
"Rete avè m." Stay with me. Her words didn't sound like no prayer.
They sounded like an order. So I stayed.
What she don't know is what else came back with me when she called.
Them bullets didn't just rip through flesh.
They opened a door and put something in me.
I can feel it even now, deep, and still, coiled around my ribs like it been waiting for me to notice.
Something old. Something patient. They didn't just try to kill me, they planted me.
And what grew wasn't gon' be the same man that fell.
______
Every time she'd whisper her prayers, I'd feel her spirit sweep through the room like a warm wind.
Candles flickered, and the air got thick enough to choke on.
It calmed the rage for a minute. Just a minute.
But as soon as the air cleared, it came back hotter.
She was saving me, yeah. But she was also holding the leash.
The longer I stayed trapped in this half-place, the meaner the thoughts got.
I started talking to myself inside the dark.
Started hearing answers that didn't sound like me.
"You ain't dead, Noles," the voice said.
"You resting. when you wake up...” The voice smiled.
You can hear when something smiles. "...
you gon' make 'em remember who you are."
It was right. Whoever pulled that trigger wanted to end me.
But they made me remember. Somebody thought I was soft.
Thought I got comfortable. They forgot what kind of man I am when you take something from me.
I don't do mourning. I do math. If you spill my blood, I'm adding names till the numbers match.
I tried to move, to twitch a finger, a hand, anything.
My body didn't listen. Felt like being buried under glass.
I could see Ayida's shadow moving, hear her voice low and steady, but the dark had my limbs like it signed a lease on me.
Still, I could feel her. Her touch. Her heat.
That soft pressure on my chest when she laid her head there, whispering things she'd never say if she thought I was awake.
It did something to me. Pulled me back when all I wanted was to drift.
Made me remember who I was and what they took.
I started counting nights. Couldn't tell time no more, but I knew when the air shifted. When the nurses left and the candles lit. When ma’s anger left the room and Ayida's calm replaced it.
That's when the silence thickened. That's when I started thinking too loud.
The question who. It played over and over, louder than the machines.
Louder than Ayida's prayers. Who set me up? Each time I asked, I felt the monster in me stir. I didn’t fight it.
I was done fighting. Fighting took too much air.
Took too much explaining. Took too much hope.
And hope was loud. Hope kept the noise running in my head like a bad engine knock you can’t ignore no matter how much you turn the radio up.
Violence didn’t ask questions. Violence didn’t argue back. Violence was quiet.
I felt myself floating before I saw anything.
Not flying. Floating. Like gravity forgot about me on purpose.
Like I was being held up by something that didn’t have hands.
Then I saw My pops. Back turned to me, standing in the dark like he owned it.
The space around us wasn’t a room exactly, just black, thick, heavy.
No walls. No ceiling. No floor I could name.
Everybody was there. I could feel them. Juste off to the side.
Jules somewhere behind me. Pierre close enough I could feel his presence without seeing him.
All my brothers in the same space, silent as a held breath.
But I was zeroed in on him. My chest tightened before I even moved.
My jaw locked. I felt the frown carve itself into my face deep enough to ache.
Lines pulling my forehead tight, like my skin was bracing for something it already knew was coming.
He turned around slow. And it was the look on his face that did it.
Smug. That same look he used to wear when he thought he’d won something.
When he thought he’d played everybody in the room, and they was too dumb to notice.
That look that said I’m ten steps ahead of you and you still think we on the same path.
I hated that look. Always had. Even as a kid, it made my stomach turn.
Made my hands itch. Made me feel small in a way I swore I’d never let myself feel again.
“You proud?” I asked him. My voice didn’t echo.
Didn’t shake. Didn’t sound angry. It sounded flat.
He didn’t answer. Didn’t have to. His face said enough.
That demon in me stretched. Yawned. Smiled without lips.
Before I even realized I’d moved, my hand was already on my hip.
Gun came up smooth. The barrel lined up dead center of his forehead like it had been practicing for this moment.
His expression never changed. I pulled the trigger.
The sound wasn’t loud like I expected. Just a dull, heavy thud, like something dropping that was always meant to hit the ground.
I watched the bullet take him backward. Watched his body fold wrong.
Watched him hit the floor like gravity finally remembered its job.
I felt it. That quiet. That deep, clean silence slide through my chest and settle.
I stepped closer and Stood over him. Looked down at the man who made me, and I felt broke me in the same lifetime.
I pulled the trigger again. The second shot felt better than the first. That’s when I knew.
The monster in me exhaled. Relief washed through me slow and heavy, like sinking into warm water after being cold too long.
My shoulders dropped. My jaw loosened. The noise in my head, the constant grinding, the looping questions, the paranoia, cut clean off.
Violence didn’t excite me. It calmed me.
That realization settled in my bones like truth.
That’s when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
Light. Careful. I turned and Ayida stood there.
Tears streaking her face. Fear sitting wide and naked in her eyes.
She looked at me like she didn’t recognize what was wearing my skin.
She backed away slow, shaking her head like she wanted to speak but didn’t trust her voice.
Like if she said my name out loud, something worse would answer back.
“Yi—” I reached for her. She slipped away.
Like smoke pulled back into the dark. And everything went black.
I dropped back into that fucked up space I couldn’t climb out of.
That half-world between breath and memory.
Between waking and drowning. The place where my body laid still, and my mind kept marching.
It hit me then, Ayida kept my soul here.
That part was true. Her prayers binded me.
Her hands held me. Her voice pulled me back from wherever the fuck I went when the lights cut off.
She stitched me to this side with blood and faith and love so deep it scared me sometimes.
But what she don’t realize and What she can’t see, Is she also fed the part of me that was never gon’ sleep again.
Every drop of her blood that spilled for me.
Every tear that soaked into my chest. Every prayer that dared call my name back from the dark.
It woke the beast up right beside me. Didn’t create it.
Just fed it. Gave it purpose. Her love saved me.
But it also built the cage I’m about to break out of.
When I rise, it wasn’t just me getting up. It would be everything they tried to bury.