Untitled By: Samantha Navaa, Archival Inkjet Print, 2018
She makes my heart smile a thousand times in one second when I see hers…
Even on days when I wish my heart could remain jaded and jet black.
And even on the days where she’s not as fast at texting back and my mind starts to doubt her.
She always proves me wrong..
Proves to me that instead of a nightmare waking me up… she’s a song.
A gentle lullaby rocking me to sleep with a basket on her back to carry all my big and small-town dreams.
My baby is beautiful.
More elegant than the White House ballroom.
More hood than a nigga from the east side of Detroit or from Acres Holmes in H-town.
But my baby got brains, too.
Can put her mind to any task she wants to.
Fix any problem even if she starts to think about it too hard.
My baby can move mountains if she wanted to.
My baby is my superhero.
Can stop this angry depressionistic bomb embedded in me 5 minutes before it explodes because she knows the only person who wants to see me damaged is the devil.
And I say 5 minutes because she will never wait ’til the last few seconds to ask if I’m okay.
My baby is my armor.
She picks me up on days I can’t pick up myself.
She be the stop of all these tears.
Be the happiness in my smile.
Be the skip in my heartbeat.
My baby be the reason I write.
Be the reason I sleep good.
Her smile be the reason I have mines on so tight.
Her laugh.
Is like an echo of angels singing in one harmony and when she snorts it’s like God himself decided to join in on the joke, too.
My baby.
Can beat anyone in a singing contest.
Don’t let that shyness fool you.
My baby can belt out note like black parents handing out whoopings and her whoopings, I mean singing, is nothing to joke about.
My baby…
Again…
My baby is so beautiful…
She’s like flowers blooming on the first day of summer.
Like a never-ending party.
Like a home cooked meal and a nice hot bath after a long day at work.
My baby is soothing.
And no matter how many scars she has mentally…
Or emotionally…
Or physically that you can see on her wrists or her thighs…
She still smiles through watery eyes and clenched fists.
My baby takes pain like a winter jacket in mid-February in Chicago.
She toughs it out and does her job.
Because being a woman in this society doesn’t mean you get to feel.
Or breaks to cry.
Or to break down.
It means you just have to work harder than any other man.
That you have to go the extra mile to be respected.
But every day I promise her that I will never be society.
That the 4 walls inside this room.
This text message thread.
This phone call.
Will never be society.
That this is a judgment-free room where breakdowns are allowed.
Where crying is suggested and where I will always be her armor when she’s not strong enough to be mine.
That even Superman has his bad days.
I tell her that she never has to be anything more than what she already is for me.
For my baby is perfection in my eyes.
Made in God’s image and sculpted so perfectly not a single freckle or curl be out of place and even on her bad days where anxiety and depression is knocking on her door trying to be the first one of many enemies out to tear her down that day I tell her…
She’s beautiful…