Tired Black girls
I'm tired. But don’t tell anyone.
I'm tired. But don’t tell anyone.
Tell them that I’m strong, fearless, resilient, confident, intelligent, determined, charismatic, beautiful, assertive and magnificent.
You can even tell them I’m magic.
That other word- let it never escape your lips. Tired. How blasphemous.
Remove them all from our vocabulary. Exhausted. Drained, Weak. Fatigued. Afraid. Uncertain.
Angry.
Words that others can mention without shame.
But as Black girls, they tell us we have no right to those words. We have no right to those feelings.
No grief only gratitude.
No anger only action.
No pain only progress.
No regret only resilience.
We masterfully submerge those forbidden emotions into the watery recesses of our mind. We learn the art of suppression, so they will never elevate into our consciousness again.
We just keep swimming. Until we drown...
No one has time for that. We have to accomplish, care, problem-solve, complete, carry, lead and support.
We must complete the to-do list. Feel, hurt, and grieve are not on the list.
They never told us the emotions would return. Until we were confronted by them yet again. In new form.
They transformed and mutated. Decades later, they returned as headaches, joint pains, high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer and autoimmune disorders.
Now, suppression is no longer possible, and sometimes, we are brought to our knees, forced to reckon with the feelings and stress that we had worked so hard to evade.
Why me? Why here? Why now? How?
Questions that we never had to ask before. Questions that never mattered. “Why?” is unnecessary to answer. We are here to do.
We have traditions to uphold and legacy to create.
Yet In the stillness, outside of others' purview, we silently whisper, “Why am I doing all of this?”
Did we choose or were we forced not to hear our own needs, wants and desires?
There is no answer. Only a deep knowing.
In the silence, there is a revelation; we recognize we cannot hide from what we feel.
We embrace the grief. We share the pain. We express our anger, no longer afraid of judgment.
It doesn't just trickle. It flows like a river. Tears, anguish, frustration—flooding our bodies. Gasping for air- a full-blown panic attack triggered by the act of feeling.
Our eyes open.
We reject our indoctrination into a care economy, completely held up by the unrelenting and unyielding labor of women, especially Black women.
Black girls who were taught to grow into Black women caring for everyone except themselves.
Caring for partners, for bosses, for children, for elders, for neighbors,for schools, for systems, for governments, for movements
For ever.
We're supposed to do it.
We've been trained to do it, we've been taught to do it, we've been coerced to do it,
and we've been shamed to do it.
So we do it. All. Everything. Everytime. All the time.
This is killing me.
This is killing my sisters.
This is killing our mothers.
This likely killed my grandmother,
This will kill my daughters.
And in doing so, we do nothing for ourselves.
Until we are drained, until we are depleted, until we are a shell of this body that we inhabit.
If we’re not careful, it will take our entire lives to realize that our lives are indeed our own.
We must be committed to un-learn and un-doctrinate ourselves from being told how and what we care about.
Instead, we must fight for the space to determine and demand who we are, where we belong, what we must do, why we must act and how we must move - on our own terms.
We have been fooled into thinking that we must choose between ourselves and others. These false beliefs will limit our lives and silence our truth.
This is how we die.
But what if we wanted to live?
Who would have to take ownership, who would have to rise up, step down and move out?
But what if we wanted to be alive?
Who would we need to be? What notions would have to die?
But what if we wanted to thrive?
What dreams would we have to resuscitate?
What vision would we have to ruthlessly follow?
What myth would we have to dismiss?
Who is that woman, the one who finally can see herself?
Where are these women?
I, me, she, we have a dream.
Instead of just survive, we are learning to truly be alive
Pouring in first, so we have something to pour out.
In memory of the Black girls who were never allowed to be themselves.
In celebration of the Black girls who are fighting to learn themselves.
In awe of the Black girls who finally remember and reclaim themselves.