Baggage

I want to love you

All of you

Without pretense or filters

Despite what my father did

The men before or after him

I want to believe in you

Even if you aren’t with me

I want to argue with you without it being stereotypical

To be sexual with being a jezebel

To be caring without being a mammy

For my womanhood not to be seen in the masculine form

And for your manhood to be whole enough for my strength not to emasculate

For your manhood to be whole enough that I don’t raise my daughters to believe that the day will come where they too must be both mother and father to children born out of hope in the truth of black love

But punished by the reality of black baggage

Some where deep down I must really believe you are a dog

In the same space where you are sure that I am a chicken head

These images are dangerous

But sometimes the only thing we know

Black men and women hate each other

The phrase rolls off my tongue quite easily most times

It’s a theory that I’ve developed over time

And that I don’t plan to stray from

It’s not to say that we don’t love each other

Just that we love hard

Sometimes too hard

A love that is unconstructive at times

The love of an insecure child

Thrust upon the existence of a defensive being

Chaos and commotion

Unable to detach from each other’s actions

I would love to see you with a white woman and not question my femininity

I would love to see you with a Latina and not wonder if I am beautiful or sexy I would love to see you with a woman that looks nothing like me and not wonder if you saw me as good enough

Even when the thoughts are fleeting they exist

And some how my security rest in your ability

Your willingness to love me

But I have yet to learn how not to see everything you do as a reflection of who I am

Truth is I am surprised we have survived this long

But I’m sure that the turmoil exists because we are often together as the result of pressure and societal norms that we confuse as love

A dedication to a culture over ourselves

Committed to myths of saving a race

More than our own happiness

I want us to not be heavy and full with the weight of the past

To have the privilege to have a genuine love

Pure and untainted by years of bondage or oppression

For those words to never sour our tastebuds

I try running to the place where we exist in peace

Where we are friends

Human

Lovers

And fine when not

But this baggage keeps holding me back

from Niema at Twenty-Something Renaissance