It began on a street called Hope. Sounds like I’m making it up when I put it like that, but it’s the god’s honest truth. We was kids back then, back at the beginning, and he was the older by some years and he said he loved me. It was stupid really, one so young to be talking love-talk. It was maybe something he’d seen on the tv or in a film or something he’d heard on the radio.
His name was Ink. At least that’s what I called him. Words came out of my mouth all broken and wrong at first and Ink just stuck so that when I had a few more years on me and I could say his name clear as any bell, well it didn’t seem right to change it. And I was Loose, which was short for Lucy.
He looked after me when I started school, like a brother would. He gave me the names of all his friends and he held my hand and he said it’d be this way always, him taking care of me. He shared his bit piece with me in the middle of the day and he said my hair was pretty and he made a gift out of a shell he’d found and he said if I held it to my ear, the soft pink lip of it, I could hear the sound of the sea trapped inside. I thought it odd that something as big as the sea, all the waves thrashing against the shore, could be caught so tightly.
And the years of our growing up were long enough and so I don’t really know how they slipped by so fast. And Ink was shaving one day and smoking and listening to records that his pa called just noise. And he taught me how to dance up in his bedroom, and a chair pushed against the handle of the shut door so no one would know. And he said again that he loved me and he hoped that I loved him too.
Then there was a boy called Cooper and he wrote me a letter in blue pencil and he said how he liked me and he couldn’t ever live without me and he wanted to kiss me in the dark behind the church on Saturday. And he did. And he put his hand under my blouse and he touched my diddies and, though he was a little rough in his not knowing, it took my breath away what he did. And he said he’d marry me one day and then he would never stop touching me, not ever.
And I think boys is such fools sometimes. You see, Ink got to find out and he was mad as cows that is always bitten by flies in summer, and he put his fist through a window and he swore and he said I just didn’t understand and I was still no more than a kid and I shouldn’t oughtta let any boy as asked touch me and kiss me like Cooper did. And he made me swear on a silver cross on a silver chain.
‘Sbeen like that ever since. I’m almost twenty and Ink don’t let me near no other boy, not even if I want to. And he says he loves me and he’s looking out for me. And he says his hopeful heart waits only for me to love him back. But he don’t never kiss me like a boy called Cooper did and he don’t touch me under my blouse or any place else. He says he’s got too much respect for that. But the thing is I want him to do these things; I want somebody to do these things and I keep hoping that one day Ink will turn his back on me and then I won’t be no sea trapped in a shell no more. And like I said, it began on a street called Hope and the lord only knows where it will all end.
Patricia Ann McNair 
It began on a street called Hope. Sounds like I’m making it up when I put it like that, but it’s the god’s honest truth. We was kids back then, back at the beginning, and he was the older by some years and he said he loved me. It was stupid really, one so young to be talking love-talk. It was maybe something he’d seen on the tv or in a film or something he’d heard on the radio.
His name was Ink. At least that’s what I called him. Words came out of my mouth all broken and wrong at first and Ink just stuck so that when I had a few more years on me and I could say his name clear as any bell, well it didn’t seem right to change it. And I was Loose, which was short for Lucy.
He looked after me when I started school, like a brother would. He gave me the names of all his friends and he held my hand and he said it’d be this way always, him taking care of me. He shared his bit piece with me in the middle of the day and he said my hair was pretty and he made a gift out of a shell he’d found and he said if I held it to my ear, the soft pink lip of it, I could hear the sound of the sea trapped inside. I thought it odd that something as big as the sea, all the waves thrashing against the shore, could be caught so tightly.
And the years of our growing up were long enough and so I don’t really know how they slipped by so fast. And Ink was shaving one day and smoking and listening to records that his pa called just noise. And he taught me how to dance up in his bedroom, and a chair pushed against the handle of the shut door so no one would know. And he said again that he loved me and he hoped that I loved him too.
Then there was a boy called Cooper and he wrote me a letter in blue pencil and he said how he liked me and he couldn’t ever live without me and he wanted to kiss me in the dark behind the church on Saturday. And he did. And he put his hand under my blouse and he touched my diddies and, though he was a little rough in his not knowing, it took my breath away what he did. And he said he’d marry me one day and then he would never stop touching me, not ever.
And I think boys is such fools sometimes. You see, Ink got to find out and he was mad as cows that is always bitten by flies in summer, and he put his fist through a window and he swore and he said I just didn’t understand and I was still no more than a kid and I shouldn’t oughtta let any boy as asked touch me and kiss me like Cooper did. And he made me swear on a silver cross on a silver chain.
‘Sbeen like that ever since. I’m almost twenty and Ink don’t let me near no other boy, not even if I want to. And he says he loves me and he’s looking out for me. And he says his hopeful heart waits only for me to love him back. But he don’t never kiss me like a boy called Cooper did and he don’t touch me under my blouse or any place else. He says he’s got too much respect for that. But the thing is I want him to do these things; I want somebody to do these things and I keep hoping that one day Ink will turn his back on me and then I won’t be no sea trapped in a shell no more. And like I said, it began on a street called Hope and the lord only knows where it will all end.