Confessions of a Tired, Black Virgin
Today is my birthday. I turn 20 years old, which is a clunky sounding word, twenty, but I guess I'll have to roll with it for the next 365 days. As I reflect on not only the past year but the past 10 years, I feel good, genuinely and unapologetically good.
Last year on this day, I cried on the phone to my family because I had to spend my birthday (which was usually a celebratory spectacle complete with a bonfire and all my friends I'd known since I was seven) with people I barely knew at the time in a city I didn't know my way around. I felt alone, wholly and completely alone with myself.
This year I feel much more grounded and complex. Identity is a diamond and I've spent the past year exploring every facet of my own identity as a black woman and loving how each one sparkles differently. The definitions of me are numerous and ever-changing and that gives me freedom to keep evolving both creatively and personally.
So, I hope you will keep that in mind as I share this collection of poems and poetic prose I wrote over the course of this year, describing thoughts and feelings I couldn't quite express out loud.
Disclaimer: I am not a poet. These are just my thoughts in cursive.
Photo by Allyse Robinson
"An Update on Feeling"
I am tainted and tired, Painted and on fire,
Shocked by rays, Glowing from the days I get to be alone
To sort out the pain, Separate tears from the rain,
Break down and build again, Repent for all my sin.
Cover me in oils and acrylics Messy fingers, messy patterns An abstract Pollock masterpiece An epic hieroglyphic poem
Screams shatter colored glass Use the shards in my mosaic Let the light shine through Scatter glimmering rays of joy
We’re a chaotic collage Clashing in the best way Making imperfect sense A discordant cadence
Blow the dandelion Make a wish Throw that glitter Do it yourself
"For Your Consumption" I am not your chocolate goddess. I’m not your double fudge brownie.
You better stop, Before I snap, crackle, pop And really get rowdy.
I am not your mocha latte. I’m not your little coffee bean. You can snicker all you want, But I’ll go nuts And immediately cause a scene.
I am not your junk food. I am not your guilty pleasure. I am not your cocoa powder baby, Because I can’t be measured.
Food rots, But I am forever. My beauty isn’t perishable, So please be more clever.
"Emotion" Sometimes emotion isn’t a burden Or a weight on the shoulders.
Sometimes emotion is going to the deep end of the swimming pool And no longer feeling the bottom.
It’s the flailing and the fighting. Fighting not against drowning but the desire to.
"The Independent Black Woman" They look. They like. They scroll. Their cry for inclusion is encapsulated in captions, but not in their actions.
"You should be loved," they say.
"Then who will love me?" she asks.
"Love yourself. You are confident. You are strong. You are independent. You can take care of everyone."
"But who will take care of me?" she asks.
"You, of course. It’s always you and you alone."
And so, she hides. Hides her desires, her doubts, her pain, her weakness. She buries it all and whispers her own eulogy. No one will dare to dig. No one will dare to challenge her lies. The lies are easier to handle. The lies validate their excuses.
Though they don’t make sense, they play innocent and force their two cents into her pocket. They tape her mouth and kidnap her complexity. They display her body as a living monument to progress. "Look how magical, look how carefree she is," they sing.
They don’t care to know that she’d rather be cared for.
She’d rather plummet from her pedestal. She wants to know someone will catch her. Catch her and hold her. But she knows that jumping will only mean the end. The end of their love—their cheap, empty love.
And maybe, that is what she truly wants. For when they see her bleed, they’ll finally know she is human.
