Chapter One: An Ovum (EXCERPT)
KINGSTON, 1992
My earliest memories trace back to living in my grandparents’ bungalow in the Waterhouse district of Kingston Parish, one of Jamaica’s most notorious political garrisons. Although I can’t pinpoint my exact age, I must have been no older than two, as we moved to Spanish Town around my third birthday. Yet, even at such a young age, the memory of exploring that cramped house remains vivid; the space felt as though it swallowed me. I have faint recollections of toddling from room to room in this compact two-bedroom home, which is about the size of an average American two-car garage. Over a dozen aunts, uncles, and cousins were crammed into the space, where the living room doubled as a third bedroom. Th ere, brown shipping barrels—once filled with American goods—served as dressers topped with doilies. In the bedroom, mattresses were arranged like Tetris blocks.
Although we had indoor plumbing, we still used a bucket to add water to the tank for flushing. Th is was a defi nite step up from the rural areas my mother came from, where my only memory of visiting was waking up to use an outside pit latrine, only to step into a cold puddle of rainwater that had dripped from the ceiling overnight. The bathroom featured a shower made of unfinished concrete slabs, and an overhead pipe was missing its showerhead.
The Kingston kitchen was a small galley equipped with a blue gas canister—a far better setup than the coal stoves used in the countryside.This cozy, crowded space was home to my grandparents’ dozen-plus children and their ever-growing number of grandchildren. I was the tenth grandchild of the emerging second generation in the Stark household, or “big yaad,” as we colloquially called it. Among the parade of interesting characters that were my family members remaining in Jamaica by 1994 was the seventh Stark child, Tuffy, who bore the strongest resemblance to my grandfather. Then there was me—his daughter, Kimberley—the youngest of the original grandkids born in Jamaica. My family called me Skimbaly, Little Miss Tuffette, or Bulby, a dig at my notably large eyes, often saying my eyes were as bright as a stadium bulb. This along with a plethora of other nicknames that distorted my middle name or made fun of my features; luckily, they eventually settled on “Kim”. You’d think that would have been the obvious starting point, but a simple name wouldn’t have served the power dynamics already at play.
While these individual memories are hazy, what remains most clear is the noise; the Starks were, simply put, a boisterous bunch. There was a constant cycle of joking, revelry and quarrels. A general sense of cantankerousness wafted through the house and neighborhood, where everyone on the avenue seemed to be in a state of perpetual warring. These verbal sparring matches—where anyone, young or old, “could get it”—were a defining feature of scarcity. This, I’d learn, was the natural consequence of poor boundaries embedded in persistent poverty. A magnetic “force”, or so the powers that be would rather it be seen, that seems to magically draw too many people into too close proximity. That ends with one reliable outcome: strife.
One particular manifestation of this remains etched in my brain. One day while on the street where my father’s family lived, as the usual collective catharsis of a street dance was in full swing, and as the cool evening breeze floated over our skin, we gathered at a neighbor’s house while “Ting a ling a ling, skool bell ah ring...” blared from the speakers. We kids flanked the space between a wooden streetlight and a broken fire hydrant, turning the pothole-filled road into our stage.
Music filled the air, and children and adults alike danced to the sounds of the time. I joined in, attempting “the Bogle” and “the Butterfly” alongside the other children, when an adult singled me out. Brusquely, telling me, “You kyaan dance, go siddung”—You cannot dance, go and sit down. Essentially: You suck at dancing; you should stop trying.
I was three years old.
Something about this moment overwhelmed me; it still sits vividly in my mind. Looking back, I see this moment awakened what I now recognize was a growing sensitivity within. I can’t tell if it was a cause or an effect, but it was the first time I felt a deep sense of shame—a sensation of a million tiny thunderbolts that flooded my system at once and nestled themselves right into my sternum. It was an emotion that would become all too familiar to me over the years.
Nevertheless, what most marked this time in my mind was my father. I remember being carried high on his shoulders as he navigated Halfway Tree buses and the clamoring of street vendors. I can still hear the clattering of dominoes, the bang of the table after a winning hand, and the clinking of beer bottles. I remember the smell of exhaust from the D&G truck he drove for work, and the time he let me sit up front to blow the horn. To me, he was larger than life: handsome, tall, slender, with skin of rich mahogany. He was loud, charismatic, and the life of the party—a man I both feared and revered.
His nickname spoke of his temperament—he was “Tough.” My mother once recounted how he once nearly killed a bus conductor in a fight for mistreating a pregnant woman. To me, however, his presence felt safe. He felt like an adventure, especially in contrast to my steady, grounded Taurean mother. He was always on the move, perhaps a result of the chaos of growing up with so many siblings. As I would later realize, Papa was simply a rolling stone; but to me, he symbolized nothing but freedom and fun.
Alongside these memories there was another that would cement a growing sense of independence. I remember another instance when one of my uncles picked me up from basic school with a group of my cousins. I found myself staring vacantly into space, dazed and no longer focused on the group. By the time I snapped out of it, they had already boarded a bus and left me behind. Panic set in as I realized I was alone. I began to cry, but then I remembered that I had been taking this route for months. I knew what to do.
When the next bus arrived, I followed all the steps I had observed my uncle doing. I boarded the bus, found a seat, and waited until we reached the Boulevard to see the overhead footbridge that marked our stop. I pulled the wire cord for the bell and approached the front. The conductor, expecting an adult to pay the fare, finally realized there was no one with me.
He began to question me, “Likkle girl! Yuh know where yuh a go!?” I explained that this was my stop and started to cry again. He helped me off the bus and called out to the crowd of street vendors, “Anybody know dis likkle girl?”
While I was crying, a woman stepped forward, saying, “Yes! Yes! Me know her. Ah me coworker niece!”
I was handed over to her; she took my hand and walked me home, and just like that, I was rescued from the brink of being lost forever—or so it felt. I was unsure if my parents were ever told. When recounted to my mother now, she only vaguely recalls that she felt terribly. Yet I often wonder what could have happened if that lady hadn’t been there. If I hadn’t had the presence of mind to pull the bell, would I have become a street kid wandering through Kingston, struggling to survive?
It strikes me now that never once did it cross my mind that anyone would have come to find me, which for a preschooler, is very telling. Instead, my mind spirals with these dreadful scenarios, but eventually, I return to a deep sense of gratitude for my lifelong source of safety, my angels. This was the first time they showed up for me, conspiring to lead me out of danger just in time.
These instances of casual sadism—like the time an uncle placed dry ice on my leg as a “joke”—would not only leave physical marks but would shape my self-perception in two lasting ways. First, it crystallized the feeling that, within the Stark family, I was forgettable, negligible and neglectable. But second, it proved that even at a young age, I was capable of finding my own way back home. So whenever I would repeatedly encounter that feeling of being alone in a sea of people, this taught me that if I kept going, my angels were always behind me, leading me home.
ON SHAME
Shame, my child,
never belonged to you.
Shame is a feeling that is rarely true.
It is simply a tool used to keep you subdued.
One the world uses to try to take you from you.
To put you in a box
and make you a piece of stock,
but try as they might,
you can’t be stopped or shocked
from being as bright as you are,
as fi lled with light as you are,
or as alright as you already are.
Th is world will try to make you feel small
and alarmed, all in an effort
to make you drop your guard.
To think things are all your fault;
so you’ll halt.
Feeling the need to put up your walls,
bracing from the winds of many storms,
unable to act without pause.
In time you’ll see
that it is okay to shine,
to rise, to fly.
Feel the cool of life’s breeze,
unencumbered by the world’s disease.
And I’ll be right here with you as you rise,
there to block all despise and evil eyes.
You won’t fully understand why;
but you will, in the sweet by and by.
Excerpt from “I Know Why The Butterfly Cries”
What happens when the system designed to protect you is the very machine that fractures your spirit?
I Know Why The Butterfly Cries is not a traditional memoir of victimhood. It is an autopsy of survival. Born into the cramped "big yaad" and the "barrel child economy" of Jamaica, Savanah Freeman was thrust into the cold, high-surveillance grid of post-9/11 New York—only to face a chilling betrayal that rewrote her life's trajectory.
Written with the raw, somatic gravity of Kiese Laymon’s Heavy and the razor-sharp indictment of Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place, this genre-defying text separates visceral memory from clinical analysis. This is a diagnostic manual for psychological liberation. It hands you the exact clinical lexicon required to map, intellectualize, and dismantle the toxic environments of your own life.
What happens when the system designed to protect you is the very machine that fractures your spirit?
I Know Why The Butterfly Cries is not a traditional memoir of victimhood. It is an autopsy of survival. Born into the cramped "big yaad" and the "barrel child economy" of Jamaica, Savanah Freeman was thrust into the cold, high-surveillance grid of post-9/11 New York—only to face a chilling betrayal that rewrote her life's trajectory.
Written with the raw, somatic gravity of Kiese Laymon’s Heavy and the razor-sharp indictment of Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place, this genre-defying text separates visceral memory from clinical analysis. This is a diagnostic manual for psychological liberation. It hands you the exact clinical lexicon required to map, intellectualize, and dismantle the toxic environments of your own life.