In This Space

In this space, I am hyper-aware of myself.

So, I am the Black girl in the ocean.

Below the water, I am a shifting blur of brown, blue, and green.

Above sea level, I am a pensive woman.

When I am the Black girl in the ocean, I am not in your ocean.

Here, I don’t have to be with anyone or looking for anyone. Anyone to be my someone.

Everyone in this water is searching for someone:

My people, my friends, my kids, my husband, my brother, my sister,

My potential partner.

But I want to look out into the endless horizon and wonder what’s out there, where I could go, how far I could go

With no anchor to slow me down,

No buoy to limit my voyage,

And no winds to blow me off my course.

But sometimes, only sometimes,

I want to look out and know someone is dreaming in the same direction.

And it’s nice to know I’m swimming towards something (or one) specifically.

Or to be pulled or pushed by a force of a storm,

To be entranced.

But I want too much,

While I’m here, I want impossible, paradoxical connections:

To be wild but anchored,

To be on a determined, yet pleasantly deterred, path,

To be limitless and have boundaries.

So today, I’ll collapse my telescope, fix my gaze ahead, put on my resting bitch face,

And be the black girl in the ocean.