The best part about this specific piece is that I am the topic. A topic I know better than anyone else. More importantly, there are not many moments where I feel confident enough to share what I write without days or even weeks of sitting and editing my work. So, this is new.

This is 34.

We are often the oppressed, and if we're honest, we are also like our oppressors. Sometimes, we use and manipulate each other when it benefits us. One day we’re Sarai and the next Hagar. We impregnate other women with our mess, and when they experience complications, we leave them, and that’s not sistering.

I knew she was dying. I think we all knew. I often think about her life. I’m in awe of how powerful she was/is. She could center you, cuss, love, and comfort you all at once.

There are countless stories of people violently abused, taken from the world far too early, and for unjustifiable ruthless reasons. Violence and murders at the hands of police and those who embody their methodology are nothing new, especially for Black people. This engraved violence and savagery did not begin in 1954 or even in 1619. We read of this behavior in the Bible, specifically in our text. Law enforcement agencies have always operated in ways they were intended. 

Tweeter. That’s what I called him. I’m not sure where this nickname originated from or even when we started to call him this. I’m not sure exactly why or when his heart stopped...but I do know what I called him and how he made me feel.

I’m sitting on a beach thankful because this is what I wanted. All I desired was to stand near the ocean, talk to God, and write.

Steelton has changed in many ways since I’ve lived there, and I am sure will continue to change before I return, but ignoring the past has gotten us to where we are today, and this is no longer an option.

This is a form of beauty that can only be achieved when one strips themselves of patriarchal white normative thought, and begins to live into the definition of beauty posed by Patricia HiIl Collins as the state of becoming.

But what is this world truly becoming?

If humanity matters to God, then God is disappointed with the past and recent decisions of the leaders of Georgia. Brian Kemp and others who devalue life have committed divine and spiritual malpractice.