Sade Andria Zabala

Dear Mother, I am finally learning how to say ‘thank you’ and express the gratitude you so firmly assumed I was incapable of having. Maybe by the end of this, you’ll also learn something, too – perhaps even how to be proud of me.

Love looks like a lipstick-painted smile on your face that feels as though belongs to someone else.

How do you make someone listen when they don’t want to? How do you fix the reality and existence of casual, everyday racism when the white perpetrators refuse to believe/acknowledge they perpetuate discrimination because they’re offended at being labeled a “racist”?

Whether you loved it or not, if you ever grew up studying at a Catholic school you’ll probably know what I’m talking about.

You recognized the soft in me when everyone else only saw the rough.

This pain is only right now. This hopelessness is only right now. This humiliation is only right now.

To be honest I’m not quite sure if you were even looking at me or looking through me. I don’t know you that well after all. Maybe you just like to stare at empty spaces and mistook me for one.

We must do away with the stigma that if a person is unwed then there must be something wrong with them or that if a person don’t deem marriage as a priority then they have psychological issues.

I know I say being single is fine and that I’m fine, but on days like this when lovers are out kissing in public and all the T.V. ever plays are romance movies… I remember you.

I am empty beds. The safe bet. The road well-traveled.
I am spilt wine and sweaty dance floors.
I am the victim and the perpetrator.

I fell in love with early mornings, and how our bones groaned from exhaustion of memories ingrained in the night.

If we had met in another lifetime, we would’ve been better versions of ourselves – the versions who would’ve stuck around the naked morning after.