So-called Black love...necessarily invents itself against the backdrop of legal and extra-legal exploitation of Black people that could reasonably disrupt intimacy except that Black people make choices... for Black people intimacy is not painless and is one of the most profound yet mundane aspects of our lives.
So, yes, I want(ed) to race again. But this is bigger than running a marathon. One of the things that truly sucks about living with a so-called rare disease like sarcoidosis is you're invisible even in the spaces that are designed to help you. In clinical environments, you are a question mark. There are so many presentations, you could be suffering from anything...or nothing. In the world, you don't "look sick." In research environments you do not take precedence.
"Grape is the sweetest betrayal. There is no removing the stain of it say moms everywhere & even if kids choose it last, they choose it, as loyal to its sugar as any."
As hard as it’s become to love my body through the challenge heart failure imposes on it (and if I’m honest before h.f.), I absolutely don’t not-love her. I do worry that she will up and leave me altogether. The truth is, our relationship will end because all bodies end. It’s no secret that all of them are fallible and impermanent despite the corporatizing of them that says we can make them otherwise.
We have a social contract in which our measuring stick for harm is familiarity and this contract puts us all at risk. Communities divest from perceived offenders (part of the premise of prisons) until and unless we perceive the offenders, not as offenders but as homies and relatives; dates or partners; familiars. Though they may have harmed or admitted to harming or being party to harm, to call them out is disruptive or shameful to the community unit, so we don’t name them offenders and absorb the harm, effectively normalizing it.
The cracks in my heart have not come from bodies offered in the guise of honey; haven’t shaken my hand seconds too long; taken my eyes for gazing balls; my limbs for casualwear. What pocks its surface could be mistaken for the debris their kind leave behind
It may be the teacher in me that believes my purpose is reinforced by my reach.
Look, I like a decent honorarium just like the next person. But if my value is wrapped up in that I feel like I'm missing the point and worse probably shortening my reach (and even worse: shortening it where it may be most critical).
So look, even if you could buy and sell them, since they don't know you from the one place they daily confront people who look like you with their wine, rice, and cilantro at the register, you are dismissed if you're lucky. If you're noticed it is with the disappointment that their come up has not been far enough up to escape the likes of your kind.
I have two things for sure in this world--faith and voice and I feel responsible for using them
Sexuality presents as attractiveness like “You’re cute, I’m attracted to your physical-ness.” And ultimately if biology and evolution is to be trusted, that translates into “I’d be interested in having sex with you.” It’s one way to fertilize the earth I suppose.
darlene anita scott 