Edwidge danticat - The Harem lyrics

Eric Saputra Ibi Aanu Zoboi "Robby lay down on the bed, exhausted. Caroline had indeed worn him out. He inhaled deeply at the thought of her cocoa skin and long dark hair. Robby would have never approached her if it weren't for Toni's encouragement. Caroline was ten years his senior, and she preferred her men young and hip. She had spent her early adult years traveling the world and dating men twice her age. Older suitors now bored her. She'd been promised her own villa in Italy, an apartment in Midtown Manhattan, a beach house in Tobago. But home had summoned her to repair the failing family business and maintain the magnificent chateau that towered over Port-au-Prince. After hours of intense lovemaking, Robby would stand on the second-floor balcony and search for the little two-room house he and Toni shared." "They were both exhausted when they entered his dark bedroom. It was unbearably hot like the rest of the city, and the stagnant air grew sour. The moonlit, foul-smelling room revealed the silhouettes of the two bodies lying there, obviously dead, rendering Caroline as still as they were." "But Robby would never let her go, because if the devil stirred again, beckoning the land to rattle and shift beneath them, forcing his little part of the house to collapse like a domino, encasing them all in this love, in this d**h, then they would truly be inseparable—he and his three lovers, bound for eternity." ___________________________________________________________ Matthew D'Amore It wasn't until he was nearly halfway across the street, having been almost run down by a speeding tap tap, that he realized the shapely woman was not Minouche after all. He was still in the middle of the street when the ground began to shift, and it was as if a huge truck or maybe a train, like the ones that used to carry sugarcane from Léogâne to Port-au-Prince during his childhood, was approaching. He looked up and down the street, trying to figure out from which direction the truck or train was coming so he could move. But when the balcony of the nearby auto parts store collapsed onto the pedestrians and merchants below, he stayed put. He crouched down to the ground, not knowing what else to hold on to, because the ground was moving. The cars and trucks stopped. The people ran in every direction. Then the buildings, the cement, maybe even the sky and clouds and sun, were falling! Tremblement de terre, he heard the people say after what seemed like hours of walking aimlessly through the streets of Port-au-Prince. It had only been an hour but Robby took slow, calculating steps. He had been coughing and swallowing dust, had felt a stinging pain on his back near his left shoulder and touched it to see that it was bleeding, though not profusely. He kept walking, even when he heard someone screaming to him for help. He just looked at the bodies beneath the fallen rubble, some reaching for anyone or anything, others unmoving. Robby gently took her arm and walked her over to each of them. “This is Tanya,” he said, then reached down and kissed her on the cheek. “And this is Minouche,” he said, doing the same to her. He motioned for Caroline's hand, but she was pulling away, stepping back, trying to make her way out of the room, out of her lover's house, and possibly out of the shaken, broken country. (this goes just before the last paragraph thats already there) ___________________________________________________________ Janai Johnson He had never thought of it this way before, but he now considered it a good thing that Tanya, Minouche, and Caroline, even with their various societal standings, all lived rather close to each other, and to him. The walk to his house from Tanya's uncle's mechanic shop took nearly a half hour with her body over his shoulder—it would've been much quicker had she not been so heavy. His house was one of the few on his block that were cracked, but had not fallen. He ignored the long gashed in the cement and headed inside. Please, Chérie,” Robby pleaded as he pulled her to him again. “Please, Caroline. I need you to be with me tonight. My place is safe, if any place us safe on a night like this. He motioned for Caroline's hand, but she was pulling away, stepping back, trying to make her way out of the room, out of her lover's house, and possibly out of the shaken, broken county. ___________________________________________________________ Nick Wright The women called him Robby. A flash of his gorgeous smile, his fake Rolex watch, and a flick of his shoulder-length dreads would get him a phone number. Only after a few date nights, when he'd join them in bed, would they know his full name: Jean-Robert Dieujuste. But he insisted that they mustn't ever call him that. To most of Pétionville's young and fabulous, he was Robby, the smoothtalking Haitian sensation whose café-au-lait complexion and designer-looking clothes made the women fight each other, as he would oftentimes relay to his childhood friend, coworker, and roommate Antonio, better known as Toni. “Ah, you get too involved, Robby,” Toni said to his friend one morning when he came home from an all-night rendezvous. Toni was sprawled out on the bed smoking a joint. He picked up a few pieces of Robby's dirty clothes from the floor and threw them at him. “These women are not looking for love. It should be easy. But no, you are the one going goo-goo-ga-ga for them.” Robby s**ed his teeth, took a pull from his friend's joint, and dropped himself on his ever-rumpled and unmade bed. “Did you see Caroline last night? Did you see the way she looked in that dress, man?