I am often expected to write for someone

A loved one

A best friend

The black race

girls

I can’t say yes,

or no to any of these.

Truth is I write for the black girls.

For that is what I am and the only experience I can write about to the fullest degree.

I write for the black girls with white music on their playlists

the ones who obsessed over Justin Bieber just like all the other whites girls.

I write for the black girls who kept nothing but bass and trap music going on their phones,

for the ones that got called ghetto and ratchet

the black girls who raised their voices and danced their hearts out

because they knew they could.

they found a music

black girl

headphones in, I write for you.

I write for the black girls with depression who are told the roof over their head means they got nothing to be depressed about.

The ones who are told to pray a little harder

like praying will rearrange the chemicals in her brain that make her want to die.

black girl, call your therapist, take your meds.

I write for you.

I write for the black girls who fell in love

with other black girls

who spent nights wondering what was wrong with them.

for the queer black girls who always say “no” when you ask at thanksgiving if she has a boyfriend

for the black girls who fear that they won’t be loved as black

if they’re loved as gay.

black girl, you love who you love

don’t be afraid to hold her hand.

I write for you.

I’m writing for the black girls with “lost virginity”

whether said “yes”

or shrieked “no”

before it happened.

I write for the black girls left to the wolves for ridicule

a ridicule based on whatever they decided to do with the paradise between their thighs.

I write for the black girls who were seen as

tainted.

I write for the black girls who got called sluts for the consent they gave

and the black girls who got called liars after the assaults their beautiful black bodies had to suffer through.

I write for the black girls who still think

it’s their fault.

that it is their fault a world like this won’t write for them

won’t care for them

black girl

I write for you.

I write for you through your pain and recovery

and every relapse in between.

I write for the black girls

who are happy.

For the black girls who love what they see in the mirror,

the ones who can swat off unwanted judgement like a fly

I write for the carefree black girls live their lives loudly not quieting for anybody.

I write for the black girls who are my loved ones, my best friends, black girls I’ve met once or twice, the ones I have yet to meet.

I write for the black girl simply because she is

a black girl.

Through the brokenness

and shaming

and acting white

and screaming

fighting

loving

and smiling

I am expected to write for someone.

Black girl,

I write for you.