There’s something about the black woman in I.

There’s something about the Black woman in I that I can’t figure out.
And there was a time where I spent my days basking in this not knowing situation.
A time when I blamed the men and women around me—
The people who couldn’t see what I wanted them to see but…
How would they see what I can’t?

I kept crying about how disrespectful ****** were to me,
How the women around me didn’t understand the feeling of not feeling enough,
How I blamed myself for everything that was happening because of me.
And yes,
If it was because of me,
Then I am at fault
And should blame myself for it.
But the picture is bigger than that.
It’s tougher than that.
It’s darker than that.

A few years later,
There’s still something about the Black woman in I that I can’t figure out.

Always complacent.
Always trying to be soft after a life of being the hardest rock.
Always trying to be mellow jazz when I was the heaviest metal.
Always trying to be touched like a piano,
But I kept on being the drums.

I’m still my own weakness, you know?
Now I’m not lying to anyone—
I’m just lying to myself.
I walk in this made-up power that I’m supposed to have,
And I built a whole bridge out of it… but it always trembles.

    “You’re so beautiful for being a Black woman.”
    It trembles.
    “Oh, you’re so well-spoken for coming from the hood!”
    It trembles.
    “Are you sure you didn’t have any help making this?”
    It trembles.
    “You’ll never be like her.”
    And it trembles.

Still, I keep walking over that bridge because—
I need to fake it until I make it, right?
I’m so tired of faking it.
I’m so tired of feeling this way.
I’m tired of being policed over my blackness,
Over my hair and my body,
Over my womanhood and my mind,
Over my sad little soul.
Still, I keep going through it,
In the hopes that I find what I want to find in the end.

    “Oh, what do you want to find?”

…

Oh, dear heart.
We were supposed to walk on lilies and green grass.
I’m sorry that we can’t.

Eight years later,
There’s something about the black woman in I that I still can’t figure out.
And just like before…

I never will.