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Lifestyle
Raised By
Beyoncé
y first Beyoncé sighting was My mother and I are ‘copy and and found that my home was white
Mas exciting as everything paste’. It’s not just her face that I – even the living room. Copy and
seems through ten-year-old eyes. have – I have her flow, her strengths paste. It made me wonder – how
In retrospect, I had no idea what and also her typos. The main design could I be the same as my mother
Bootylicious meant but the beat, difference is that I have a bigger but also so different?
the flare and the flow of her wispy mouth. We feel the same things but
blonde hair made me long for fame express them differently. While my I had a sister once and she fed me
and womanhood. mother faces injustice by thinking all of her music. Through her, I went
deeply and finding a resolve that down every Beyoncé transition
On Talent Day, a trio of older maintains internal and external and even after she passed away,
grade seven (7) girls performed peace, I dig my heels into the ground I just kept on going. For some
Bootylicious. What they lacked in and launch a campaign to correct years, Beyoncé was that sister who
originality, they made up for that the injustice. My mother would felt everything deeply and sang it
with cheer and confidence. They complain about my brothers’ filth better than we ever could. I was too
wore coordinated denim outfits and while cleaning up after them; I would young to feel any of it, but it was
mouthed every lyric. The timid girl shout about it for fifteen minutes fascinating to see my sister in her
in the trio was Beyoncé for the day then create a cleaning schedule marriage, living out every word from
and she tied her shirt up to reveal where each of us gets to clean for her song ‘Dangerously in Love’.
her midriff as it was the Beyoncé at least a day. Both scenarios would A man proposed to me and I could
thing to do. I remember each tassel end the same – the house would be feel my mother tense, praying hard
on their clothes, the light sheen of clean. that I don’t copy the typos of what
sweat on their skin and the rickety marriage came to be in her life. I
stage they stepped on. I remember Mother’s bedroom is paradise. Her was supposed to be happy – and I
it all because of how it made me bed is a cloud and she even has was – but I just couldn’t shake off the
feel. In the four minutes forty-five a white net that creates a barrier ‘what ifs’. The proposal turned to an
seconds performance, I forgot between her solace and the world. engagement which morphed into a
myself. I forgot about the rigid hair Everything in her room is white and wedding that is now a marriage. On
on my head, forgot my mismatched for a long time she tried to convince most days, I know I have nothing
ill-fitting outfit and the ugly patent me to do the same with my own to worry about. Maybe typos get
leather shoes that my father insisted room. White is hard to maintain, corrected when you proofread after
were fashionable. Beyoncé did especially if you are a makeup copying and pasting.
something to those girls that they wearing, snack consuming, series
in turn did to me. In those seconds, binging dragon, so I said no. I moved On Sundays, my mother blasted
I was cheeky, cool and I daresay, a into my own home, buried my head gospel music and cleaned the whole
little Bootylicious. into Pinterest and local furnishing house; she would have cleaned
deals; then one day, I looked up the roof if she could. It was torture
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