To the black girl who used her blackness to write this poem…

Who writes her name in black ink,

Who ends her statements in black hearts,

who puts her black heart at the end of every statement,

Who leaves her black heart at the end of every statement,

Who smiles at at the people who can’t stand her black heart at the end of every one of her statements…

She says period like her blackness doesn’t already mean stop,

Like she has a say in any of this blackness, like her black heart doesn’t jump at the thought of controlling her blackness,

She should say exclamation point, but when you put your whole black heart in everything,

Everything comes back to you with that same energy, and she doesn’t find excitement in being black….

Or at she least didn’t.

To the black girl who didn’t used to find excitement in her blackness,

Who associated her blackness to nothingness,

Until her nothingness became her reality,

To the black girl who looked at the empty skies, and didn’t see the hidden stars,

And didn’t acknowledge her stars as they fell out of her eyes,

She wiped them away too quick, it’s okay though,

Gold stays on her hand like she is paint brush, but never canvas…

To the black girl who doesn’t consider herself artwork,

Who doesn’t see the beauty in her black skin; that opens up to words too often,

To the black girl who has never heard the sticks and stones saying,

To the black girl who has heard the sticks and stones saying, and still lets her skin open up like blank pages,

To the the black girl that realized that black pages with black ink is meaningless, unless she is holding the pen…

To the black girl who ends her statements in black hearts,

To the black girl who now finds excitement in her black skin,

To the black girl who lets her stars pour out unapologetically,

To the black girl who is simply, no, who is anything but simply artwork,

To the black girl who recites “sticks and stones may break my bones but words may never harm me” over and over again until she made it her motto,

I feel you, I am you…