“Soul Sista” by Bilal & Raphael Saadiq

Queen Is Slim

Hey y’all, I’ve been thinking about love. (Honestly there’s not a moment my true libra soul isn’t thinking about love), but I’ve been dreaming. Just thinking of what love looks like to me now, especially knowing what I know and who I am turning out to be so far. It helps me to picture what love looks like to me in various situations so I know how to identify when it is my accepted form of love and when it’s fraud. I read a lot of think pieces and spoke with friends about the movie Queen n Slim and I’ve decided I’m not really a fan of it. I mean, it wasn’t bad but is it a movie I would choose to watch again— no. I loved the cinematography and the scenes but I just didn’t know what the message was supposed to be, I still don’t know what the commentary of that movie implies about black love. I know black love sometimes has to fight for its existence, and it has to constantly defend the right to be a valid kind of love but it’s so different for everyone that the struggle/survival love doesn’t apply to every situation. I grew up seeing movies like The Notebook, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, A Walk to Remember, etc. and other old classics and I always felt that true romance was never shown in black movies. Like all of the corny lines, the long speech where they admit their love for each other, the guy runs his hands through her curls or anything. It’s always this gritty type of love or love that usually the black woman has to struggle through to get a dude to say “ love you girl, you know that”. I know there is heavy pushback from major movie studios showing black love with two main characters. But it doesn’t mean we aren’t deserving of seeing that and knowing that the pentacle of romance for black love isn’t a bunch of sex scenes and a half assed expression of feelings. Queen and Slim wasn’t that, but it wasn’t a love story I’d want. Black love isn’t exempt from making you feel infinite and larger than life. I know and I’ve seen black love in the flesh, in all forms, and we are not hard to love. Black love deserves all of the affection, respect, laughter, tenderness, and humanity it produces within us. According to movies, romance is reserved for white people and I refuse to believe that. We face so much in this world and we fight against various institutions of isms,phobias,and hatred, love is the most humane experience people can express and share. So to deny black love the right to express that same compassion and tenderness unless guns are at our backs is disheartening and another way (to me) exploiting our emotions and biggest fears or being claimed by the system before we get the chance to really love and find that freedom. So I say alladat to say I wrote a poem. Duh.

Queen is Slim

I want love that feels like a sax intro 

Swinging with my feet in the air 

We don’t catch our breath but you catch me

While we find gold and live larger than the Earth can stomach 

I want industrial love. 

Where we have dreams to build on like we have prisons to bury people under. 

My people. 

I want to feel like a legacy.

I want to be your legacy and not be killed as an afterthought 

Or be killed before I let you in. 

I want to let you in. 

I don’t want you to be my friend. 

My friends know too much of me to ever love me 

The way I want to love you. 

The way I want to travel you and learn the language you use to speak to your mother 

The language that tip toes out when you go to your favorite spot 

They know your name 

I want to know your accents.

I want to accentuate your existence 

Until Creator has no choice but to say our names together 

When we enter eternity.

Thanks y’all