Loving The Black Of Me

“Eventually it comes to you: the thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely.” — Lorraine Hansberry

I was reminded today, as in any typical day, of how on a regular basis — without specific conditioning or training — most things in this world want to kill me. My innocence is not granted as a child. My death will be mourned by none, but my own. My pain as an adult is used to pathologize and blame me. And I continue to be the mule of the world.

I know that my love is powerful. It heals the world. It moves the world. It shakes the world. But how much does the world take before it makes me break?

Do we not love to be loved? Where is the place that I and my heart are not open season for everyone and everything else? Where is the place that you love me for my complexity, and wholeheartedly embrace and accept me?Where you don’t try to cut out the “inconvenient” pieces of me? Where love does not require you to contort yourself to get around and deny how and that you love me? Where you love me in large part because and not despitethe blackness of me?

I dream of a space where you take not just the gifts of me, but also responsibility for the care of me. Where is the well from which I am supposed to be full? …that place easily waiting to love me?

*This piece was originally published on Medium