sweet sweet fire burning inside

let me free you

feathers and blows are twirling outside

awaiting you

wisp dance caress the dawn

unleash you

soft feathers are ashes now

scattered and blue

Soft is what we want it to be. I’ve never seen a softer person than a black woman fixing you a plate of a fresh homemade meal she's cooked with what little love she had left. She can’t tell you nice things because she is preoccupied. She knows that her words are weapons turned against her. She has been through this too often, she has been called aggressive, combative, impudent. So she bites her tongue until it hurts, blood tastes better than disdain.

I sometimes wonder if our quest for softness isn't just another way of escaping our complexity. We can’t bear more suffering and, no, we shouldn’t. I, too, am exhausted. Life in my skin has made me socially anxious, my body and my mind stained with permanent scars. Still, I am a firm believer that our ability to fight is our superpower. Without it, I’d be dead by now, without it, you would be too.

Oh I hate when they say it to me. In awe of my resilience. Beauty runs dry when they speak our names, only braveness and strength. Calloused hands. If they don’t see it, let them be blind, let us decide of our destiny. Let us bless them with the soft kiss of fire.

there’s nothing softer than our full lips,

there’s nothing softer than the velvet of our skin reflecting sunlight,

there’s nothing softer than the sound of our laughs when we are loved,

there’s nothing softer than the touch of our fingers running through our coils,

there’s nothing softer than us.

All the images illustrating this piece are paintings by Danielle Joy Mckinney. She is a contemporary American artist known for her paintings of black women in casual, soft, intimate settings. If you like her work, you can see more of it here.

Thank you for spending some time with my words, it means a lot to me. If you find yourself having similar feelings and want to share, I’d love to read what you have to say and interact with you. I hope softness blessed you with her touch today.