Prose:

1
It’s never a big thing 
It’s actually never A thing 
It’s thousands of little silent things that chip and nibble away
Like termites ruining stability, hollowing out a beam. 
The structure still stands but it creeks and cracks and groans under the weight of needing to support something of substance and not just maintain shape, the outline of the full thing it once was. 
The splinters I've prized out of my mouth hold the truth, yet somehow I've shaved, and carved, and glued them into something prettier, something worthier of you, but somehow still hollow.
I now understand the women I made fun of as a child.
Listening and singing along to gospel music all day, in their cramped kitchens the centers of their cluttered homes. 
They were once broken too,
Told and believed they were undeserving of the light that’s innate within them, 
And in their despair they found something that told them you’re loved, you're whole, the god in you is beautiful, everything is within you. 
I think of this and remember sister Clare, more the discomfort I felt around her own comfort and joy that radiated off of her. I think of her and my indictment of her as I listen to the same 10 affirmation songs on repeat, which may or may not be AI generated, every day. 
I’ve become the thing I made fun of. 
Old, fat, Black lady, with short gray braids only visible at home, who’s loud with her opinions because no one ever asks for hers, kind but harsh and somehow also soft. Unloved and ugly but wholly acceptant of herself, her soft edges, round rotund tummy, and dark doughy thighs, all mine, all claimed, sometimes loved. 
She doesn’t need the world to think her beautiful because through this constant meditation, constant repetition of mantras, she feels these things even though they are withheld from her. 
What right does she have to feel that way? What right do you have to tell her she shouldn’t? 
I’m ashamed to say that as a child and sometimes even now, I hate my Blackness. Until I’m confronted by someone who hates it even more, then I take joy and bask in my power to ruin their day by simply existing in a happiness that isn’t supposed to be. 

2
There’s a new song that I’m obsessed with and the hook of the chorus is “wife, whore, mistress, maid, mother.” On repeat as if there’s no escaping these roles. The men I’ve loved have put me in mistress, maid, whore, and wife, but it always ends with me as mother. Like when shuffling the deck it is inevitable, the last card I pull is always mother. Regardless of how it starts. And Not “mother” to any children we make, because we don’t make any, but “mother” to someone else’s child who is using me to build himself up, or get his money right, to never be lonely, to always have a home for his cock. 

I used to be a “pick me”. I did anything and everything I could so they would pick me. Use me just so I can momentarily feel what love is. Let me feel what it’s like to be wanted. But the feeling doesn’t last long when you know you’re racing toward that inevitable “mother”. I don’t get to be fun, or light, or sexy. I’m responsible, planning and orchestrating, working hard, being resilient. I don’t get to be sexy any more because “mother” isn’t sexy. So how long can this last? How long can I be this “mother” somehow parallel but never adjacent to woman? There are men who will put me in the mistress or whore category! Who see that I am a woman. That I have a ripe and delicious cunt ready to be devoured. But they will never love me never “wife” me. Never claim me or keep me. 

The men who do claim me, swiftly mark me as “mother” and wait to be babied, wait for me to give up on my dreams to mother them. Wait for me to lose myself in caring for them, providing for them, building them up, teaching them, coddling them, then finally resenting them. I have desperately loved every man who has abused me, bc that means he must care. 

I can’t do it anymore don’t pick me, don’t pick me, don’t pick me!

I’m very aware that I’m choosing a life without ever experiencing a great love from a man, from anyone for that matter. A life never knowing what it feels like to really be loved by someone else. I will have to pick me.