Brown Sugar
"Zoe"
Zoe is a delicate stone. A gentle lioness, a steel magnolia.
Zoe will trot alone all over the country. She will walk a
child home through the roughest neighborhoods. She'll walk
up to the meanest-looking thug on the corner and pinch his
cheeks. If he looks at her like she's lost her mind, she'll
cop one of his potato chips and walk away, calling "Bye,
Sugar lump" over her shoulder. Yet she'll cry inconsolably
if she sees a dog limping.
Zoe will give you her body unselfishly. She'll shower you
with the love that you've craved from birth. She'll make you
feel like you're the king of the world. Then she'll leave
you without a goodbye.
Zoe, the most beautiful girl in the world, will stand alone
near the wall at a party with loneliness etched in her eyes.
She'll have the attention of every man in the room, but she'll
run to the bathroom in tears, thinking that she's ugly. That's
what she'd been doing when I saw her at a party during my
junior year in college.
 I'd
been scoping her out because she was tight from head to toe.
Zoe had an Afrocentric thing going on with her beautiful,
short natural and silver cowrie shell jewelry. I'd never kicked
it with a sister with a natural before, but looking at her
in all of her regal beauty, I couldn't envision her any other
way. Her dark brown face held high, gorgeously sculpted cheekbones.
She seemed to flaunt her full, succulent lips. I had the urge
to strut over to her and just suck on one.
Looking at her, it was easy to see that she was different
from the other women I've known. They're cultured, but shallow.
Intelligent, but unfeeling. They're groomed from the crib
to socialize only in certain circles. Socially conscious and
civic-minded they are, but not just any charity or any club
will do. It must be the right club with the right members
who have the right connections. They must wear the right clothes
accessorized the right way, and they must have the right hair
done in the right hairstyle so they attract the right man
who will afford them the right lifestyle. Woe unto the poor
brother who gets his heart up enough to step to one of these
sophisticated sisters. He's shot down in a matter of seconds,
and he walks away wondering what kind of brother would be
acceptable to this type of woman. That kind of brother is
me, but I'm tired of that kind of sister. I want somebody
real, not somebody right, and Zoe had piqued my interest.
While I watched her, my drink began to taste bland by comparison,
so I put it down, preparing to navigate through the crowd
to my mother ship, but when I looked up, she was gone...
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