I haven’t written a poem in almost over 15 years, not since my high school creative writing classes when all of my poems were about sex and fuckboys (I was basically Rupi Kaur). Last year, I took an online humanities class using poetry as self expression and a healing ritual. In the class, we studied a lot of poets who wrote about their personal lives and growth and I noticed something.
Lots of creatives refer to their trauma or their shadow selves as “darkness.” And becoming their higher self is akin to getting closer to the “light.” Light is good. Dark is bad. And as a Black woman, I took offense to this dichotomy.
If you let some corners of the media tell it, to be in blackness is the worst thing you can be. Yet, I live in Blackness everyday. I know the distinction between a dark night of the soul and a dark skinned person. But how we feel about blackness seeps into our perceptions of the Black body. And I got a problem with that! I mean, look at your average Disney movie. The villains are typically darker than the antagonists (Ursula, Scar, Hades, the Huns in Mulan). To be dark is evil, sad, tragic. We learn that early through the cartoons we watch, the books we read, the language we use.
But that’s not all I take issue with. Blackness with a capital B not a problem, but neither is blackness in the lowercase sense. Your shadow side is nothing to be afraid or ashamed of. And it’s nothing to be wholly eliminated or avoided, either. Instead, I think we should embrace the parts of ourselves that we’ve been conditioned to hide or therapize away. Because it’s all still part of what makes you you. Wishing I was different takes away energy that could be spent loving myself.
Anyway I had all of this on my mind when I felt compelled to write a poem on the last day of that class to celebrate darkness, shadows, and Blackness (lowercase and capital B). Here is the first poem I’ve written in 15 years (and I wrote it in 10 minutes). Enjoy!
Come wander with me
Come find me in
darkness.
come wander through halls of satiny shades
cloaks of color
crushing velvet that envelopes you in mothers’ love,
shielding from the harshness of light.
It’s too much sometimes, right?
The need to be right.
to be pure and white.
Come sit a while in the cool dark night.
Wash away
the rush of day.
the rush to be anything
but me.
To lighten my load
To lighten my sin
to wash away what’s “inherent” within
Sit back and bask in what you can’t don’t see
Swallow
the peace
the praise
the dance
the taste
the people.
Come celebrate what can only exist
in the night of day.
what always persists in spite of the day.
In no right way
cause we all alright
and we know our way.
and we make our way
and we survive and thrive despite the day.
Come wonder with me and don’t
be afraid
because I am not lost.
This entry was written under the prompt WORST, Day 21 of the Finding the Right Words 30-Day Journaling Challenge. Follow along using the graphic above and write about whatever comes to mind with the corresponding prompt. Share with me using the tag #FTRW or email me at joliedoggett [at] substack.com.
There’s no wrong way to journal. You just gotta find the right words. Happy Writing!