Love is…the wrapping of oneself around another. it’s handling someone with gloves to ensure they are well taken care of. love is gentle and soft like a newborn’s tummy. love knows that the other is fragile, that it must handle with care. it makes concessions for the other, which makes love subject, even submissive, to the other. love doesn’t mind though.

Blackness is my mother tongue, my very first love language.

I was birthed in a Black Pentecostal church. My dark-skinned body was birthed into choir rocks and hand claps, my spirit reborn in the cool baptismal pool. My speech refined with new tongues,and my future prophesied into being.