I am hungry for a love my country cannot afford.
I want a love
that will buffer my mistakes even before I commit them
A love that has mapped out the possibilities of my existence
and made room for each one of them
A love that doesn’t need me to clamour to identify as black too
just so I can swim in the opportunity pool
A love that doesn’t need me to be well versed in articulating
how high I am on the needy Olympics scale to be deserving of support
A love that doesn’t even need me to have an archive of pain
to be worthy of inclusion
I want a love
that doesn’t need me to work like there’s two of me
in this body just to be visible
A love that doesn’t require me to be
both pregnant and doula
trying to pull a nirvana out of my ass just for being different
I want a love
that doesn’t require me to be ridiculously multifaceted
in order to have a fraction of an equation at being equipped for survival
A love that doesn’t wait for another suitor to sing praises of my genius
before recognizing my worth
Or worse, only after I’m dead
I am hungry for a love my country cannot afford,
the way white lusts for a backdrop to outshine.

****

[Courtesy of the author]

Link to the Italian translation