Misunderstood?

I held this beautiful baby girl today. She appeared to be discerning in her innocence or maybe that’s just what I projected onto this little human as she stared her observant stare and got closer to take me in. I enjoyed her smell, so comforting. She transported me for a spell as I needed the reminder of fertile opportunity, of the playful quietness with a little black girl exploring her vast world. How she instinctively knew I would hold her up and reached out for me to do so. But now I’m home in my sorrow wondering if the world won’t show up for her. How despite the efforts of her parents and other protectors, she’ll still be made to “adult” before age 15, even age 8. Will she only be remembered for her provoked anger or tricked into complacency? Or be lauded for the way she accommodated oppressors at her own expense, being nothing but a disservice to her people despite taking the L for them? I sob knowing that I’m actually in my own story, though I’m thankful that hers is still a mystery waiting to be written. Sadly, my hope for myself does not transcend the pain in which I sit.

The remarks remain the same. The attention on nothing else. “She’s loud, too loud. She fights too hard. Is too honest. She’s mad, angry, doesn’t play ball, she’s explosive.” If they don’t say the words, there are the stares of disapproval masked as diplomatic support. Where are the critics when I weep and lament as another dream is erased or belittled or stolen? Don’t they hear my doubts? My fears? My regrets are endless and desires few. I feel like nothing in a world dying to prove it’s everything. Where are the saviors then, the ones who clearly wanted me to be quieter, more demure, passive and amiable to justify my deservedness? The ones who amped me up to say what they wouldn’t? I’m writhing inside and people reduce me to a one-dimensional epithet with no regard for how it hurts to be misnamed and unseen. How it hurts to be hurt. To not be mentioned at all. Eyes flooded, I envy that beautiful baby girl because she gets to be one.