Black Softness After Sirens

It is time

to fold up February

like a weathered newspaper.

Black History Month—

you have been

a mirror

and a memorial.

Tonight

I bow my head,

not in defeat,

but in exhaustion.

God,

let us enter

a season

of Black softness.

Not another March

where my sneakers learn

the map of injustice

better

than my passport does.

Not another chant

that tastes like tear gas

and swallowed pride.

I am tired

of screaming

into microphones

that echo

but do not answer.

We say their names

like rosary beads

between trembling fingers—

the stolen,

the trafficked,

the trapped,

the caged,

the killed.

Every day

another syllable

carved into bone.

Our grief

is public record.

Our mourning

is live-streamed.

Our rage

is always on display,

like a museum exhibit

we never agreed

to curate.

I want us soft.

Soft like oil

on brown shoulders.

Soft like laughter

rolling through a kitchen

where the greens

are simmering

and nobody

is watching the news.

Let us support

the hands

that look like ours—

the innovators

stitching brilliance

into hoodies, books, code,

film, fragrance.

Let us spend dollars

like prayers,

seed our own soil,

instead of shouting

at corporations

that do not know

our grandmother’s names.

I am not asking us

to forget.

I am asking us

to live—

to fund our own dreams

like they are sacred trusts,

to lift each other

without waiting

for permission slips

from power.

Let our voices rise

not always in protest,

but in harmony.

Let us sing

without bruised throats.

Let our children

inherit rest

instead of resistance manuals.

Black softness

is not weakness.

It is survival

without spectacle.

It is choosing joy

without apology.

So farewell, February.

Carry our history

gently.

And may the next season

hold fewer sirens

and more sun

on our faces.

May we be tender.

May we be funded.

May we be free.