I love to write, obviously, since I’m pursuing it as my senior project and hopefully my career. Reading others writing sometimes inspires me to write so here is an excerpt inspired by the stories I read in the literary magazine Zyzzyva.

My aunt Loretta sits across from me. Its funny, whenever I pictured a woman named Loretta I always pictured a heavy-set black woman who worked at hospital yelling sassy catchphrases at the nurses. My aunt (or should I say great Aunt) Loretta could not be farther than that. Honestly I wasn’t sure what to expect from my mother’s aunt. After being unceremoniously dumped here by the social worker in a cloud of cheap perfume and diesel, I was just glad to be somewhere warm. Aunt Loretta lives in a colorful bungalow in downtown L.A. located a couple of blocks from a noisy Mexican restaurant where it always seems to be the Cinco de Mayo. It was summer, the sticky heat sticking to my hair and my worn out clothes. The social worker had cranked up the AC to glacial in her dilapidated honda.

“Mrs. Pears?” The social worked had knocked on the door while shouting, her red lips distorting so she could talk. I stand next to her, a duffel bag and borrowed clothes are the only things I have left except my memories. I wait nervously next to her. If Aunt Loretta decided she did not want me I wasn’t sure where I would go. Mama never visited her aunt and I’d never met her.

“Hello!” Footsteps clack towards the screen door and I hold my breath without even meaning to. The woman who greets us is short, shorter than me, but she seems six feet tall. Her hair is white blonde and teased into a giant bouffant on top of her head. She has purple eyes and huge fake lashes outlined by jet black eyeliner. Her lips are fuchsia, outlined by bright red lipliner. She wears a blue and gold gauzy muumuu and six inch high platform sandal with fake flowers on them. She smiles at us and then her face distorts into an oh shit expression

“Hi Auntie.”