The world does not hand you softness when you are born Black and queer.
It does not give you instructions on how to carry love without apology.
It does not teach you how to exist in a body they never planned for.

So you learn in the quiet.
In the spaces between being seen and being erased.
You learn from the ones who never flinched when they said your name.
And you learn from the ones who did.

Some lessons come in whispers.
Some in wounds.
Some in the silence left behind.

Either way, you survive.
Either way, you keep moving.