On Healing
“My google search told me that when a wound heals, the new skin is only 80% as strong. This means it’s more vulnerable to being broken open again.”
A Woman's Heart
"The mirror of truth, / the shame and pain of emptiness, / of lack, / of defeat."
After Birth
“So I decided to give my attitude a switch, / Look at myself every day and give that girl a kiss; / No more over-analyzing the tiny flawed bits, / I’m reminding myself that I’m still the shit!”
A Dose of Octuple Patterns
Things I could do with my time: Cook nshima and kapenta. Cook visashi. Crotchet products from chitenge. Knit products from chitenge. Speak to my parents about a history they had long left behind and refuse to revisit. Speak to my father about his life in Egypt. Speak to my mother about her life before my father. Speak to myself. Things I do instead: Have an existential crisis, several crises.
The Fear of Letting Go
Our parents have good intentions, but what happens when fear is masked as protection?
The Song They Wrote
I contort your words / inside out until / they are mangled. / I can’t use syllables, / sound siphoned.
Punishment
Dissected, chopped and carved, like a butcher’s plaything / I am repeatedly punished everywhere I reside.
The Butterfly on My Neck
At age thirteen, it had grown almost to the size of my fist. / I began to resent it.
5 Important Things Black Women Need to Hear Right Now
Five important truths and tips that are so important for my Black Queens to hear at a time like this…
The Cost of Having
Allowing the wrong person into the inner chambers of your heart is dangerous. Probably the most dangerous thing one can ever do.
Blooming in the Dark
To all the others like me stumbling bravely on this dark road, I’ll think of you.
Bus Ride Home
What is your presumption? When you gaze at my ebony cheeks, and twist your nose in disgust?
Little Girl
Who created these labels that you have been so keen to hide behind for 28 years? It is time to reject them.
"I need to see my own beauty and to continue to be reminded that I am enough, that I am worthy of love without effort, that I am beautiful, that the texture of my hair and that the shape of my curves, the size of my lips, the color of my skin, and the feelings that I have are all worthy and okay."
— Tracee Ellis Ross