Loving While Black

No one taught us how to do this shit.

My mother and father never taught me that ‘forever love’.

I learned a temporary love from them. The kind that lasts minutes, lingers on a perfectly timed kiss, falls off, fades to black. I learned how to put up my hands in defense of love. How to cherish its memory. I knew love by ubiquitous reputation, but it slipped through my fingers in streams of smoke. Again and again.