Through good times and bad times,
I'll be by your side forevermore.
That is what friends are for

I'd let you know my greatest weakness
I'd let you in my deepest darkest secrets
If so, would you let me fix your broken pieces?
Would you mind the warmth of my kisses?

I' d lay down my armor
I'd let you see the tears I shed for
Would you even care?
Even though I treated you no fair?

I'd let myself lie in your embrace
I'd let you set my heart ablaze
Would you let this time pass by?
Would you mind giving it one more try?

We no longer speak
but I conversate with you.
I transverse through
every syllable I ever spoke,
every gesture,
every lie,
every joke,
and every poem
I ever wrote.

We no longer speak
but I've been talking to you;
in dark rooms at strange hours
unable to sleep;
sometimes on clear nights
under a menacing moon
allowing its bright light
to wash me in its purity.

We no longer speak
and it’s time I stopped,
stopped reliving every mistake
stopped thinking,
stopped wondering,
and stopped loving you
because the gravity
that once drew us together
now pushes us apart
and with each rotation
I the moon go further
and further from the earth’s heart.

I never think much about the fact that I am black.
I know I am black.
Like I know I am a girl,
Like I know I am an American,
Like I know I am nineteen.
It is a fact; I am black.

I hate when people say I am not.
My parents are black.
Their parents are black.
We are black.
Look at my skin,
It's dark and it's beautiful.
How could I not be black?
I am black.

I hate when people say I don't 'act' black.
How does one act to be considered black?
How am I acting? How is it not black?
Look at my skin,
It's dark and it's beautiful.
How could I not act black?
I am black.

I hate when people say I speak like a white person.
A way of speaking is not exclusive to race.
I am not white.
I do not speak like a white person.
My words are coming out of my black mouth.
I speak properly,
The way my black parents raised me to.
Look at my skin,
Its dark and it's beautiful.
How could I not speak black?
I am black.

I HATE when people say I am a white person trapped in a black body.
I have NEVER heard anything more insulting.
I am NOT trapped.
This color is NOT a cell.
I wear it proudly.
Look at MY skin,
It is DARK and it is BEAUTIFUL!
How could I ever be trapped?
I am black.

I am in no way white,
Nor do I ever want to be.
I am black
And black is beautiful

Looking at pictures of your ex
on Facebook at three o’clock
in the morning never helped anyone
my mother says with her bittersweet
chocolate voice flowing
through the phone.

But she can’t remember
the time when he took me to the fair
and won me a sickly carnival fish
swimming in circles, banging
its head on the glass
of a too-small fishbowl
filled with icy blue water.
We named him Bear
so he would grow
big and strong
fed him all the love
we could muster up.

The best we could give
was an old plastic cup
much too small for love
to grow the way it needs to.
I looked into the fish’s blank eyes
and saw a piece of me
I had not seen before
and in the morning
there he was belly-up,
eyes blank as before.

He said sometimes
that's just what happens
when you love someone
too much.
He was right.

You tell us to be who we are
But then judge us when you see our scars.