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Growing up on the East Side, I remember the summer of 99 when she first caught my eye, at the pool over on Martin Luther Avenue, she was wearing a blue two-piece swimsuit and her long black hair reached her waist. Keyshia had the boys whistling saying, “damn ma thatis fat.” She just smiled, dimples deep as mud holes, she sat down in her pool chair, big Gucci glasses on, she let the sun soak in her face.
I remember seeing Keyshia in the hallways, she had all the girls jealous the way the jeans hugged her best assets and made all the men want to get in her pants, but I mean that’s Keyshia.Keyshia sat at the back of the class, she didn’t say much, unless she was talking to her two friends, they joked she laughed, she bit her pencil like candy and twirled her hair like a spinning wheel. Keyshia never ate lunch probably why she looked so amazing, a figure like that could only be seen in a magazine. 
I remember Keyshia always wore name brand, Calvin Klein, Gucci, Fendi and more I mean Keyshia probably bought the store.
I remember hearing about Keyshia with all the boys. Dequan, DeMarcus, Calvin and James and they said we ran a train. 
That’s the Keyshia we know but the truth is. 
That day at the pool Keyshia wore those shades just to cover her shame. A blackened eye that she couldn’t hide, and she was lucky to get away. 
Everybody was jealous of Keyshia’s little shape but what they didn’t know was that her step daddy started early, he did something no man should ever do to a girl. Keyshia looked in the mirror and hated herself every day, hated who he made her, and who she had become. 
Keyshia laughed in class, everyone assumed that she didn’t know much but truth be told she always had an A plus. 
Keyshia never ate lunch because she was always smuggling food to take home. Mom didn’t have enough money for food and step-daddy was a crack fiend who sold any and everything so Keyshia had to provide for herself. 
Keyshia always wore name brand, but she was ashamed. Keyshia hated who she had become but she endured so much more like being called whore and slut, her head getting pushed under the steering wheel and her legs propped high up in the air, her tears falling but one thought through her mind, “I gotta have clothes tonight, pay the bills tomorrow and go to school too.”
Those boys lied about Keyshia, they wish they could hit, she told them all off, but they couldn’t take it. They pushed her in a janitor's closet and took advantage and called it a train, after they finished, they picked her up and dropped her off at the bus stop in the rain. Keyshia died inside that day, she slit her wrist in a dirty bathroom on Harlem’s East Side.
Candles lit, flowers everywhere... some real, some artificial, stuffed bears and pictures. The night sky quilting the sadness and stillness floating in the air. “Did you know her?” “Who?” Keyshia.” Then I thought about it, Keyshia , yeah I remember Keyshia...
I remember how she twirled her hair like a spinning wheel but every so often she would look out the window and stare, stare like she was hungry, but now I realize what she was staring at and why her face always seemed so sad and her expression some days helpless when she returned to her work, she was staring at what could have been FREEDOM.
