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The Book Collector
A couple of months ago, I came to the conclusion that as long as I am alive, I am going to buy books. I am a prolific reader. I love books—the smell of a new one, the quiet promise in its untouched pages. I love pulling an old book from a shelf and finding phone…
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Not All Men—Just These Ones
I really try my best not to man-bash, but mercy has its limits. Harder than a pimp’s heart, yes—and just as guarded. I don’t carry this irritation into my real life. The men I know in flesh and breath can look you in the eye, hold a thought, and say something with weight. They exist…
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Not Every Man Who Desires You Can Walk Beside You
Any man threatened by your independence, your intellect, your spirituality, your sensuality, or your refusal to play small is not for you. He may be fascinated by you. He may desire you. But he is not built to walk beside you. Men like that don’t want a woman; they want a dimmer switch. They want…
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Access Is Not a Right.
Remember earlier this year when folks were losing their ever-loving minds over a statue of a Black woman in New York because she was “fat”? This nonsense popped off not long after the president’s inauguration—right when certain people were feeling themselves a little too hard and decided trolling Black spaces online was a personality trait.…
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Not All Water Is Innocent
As a Chicagoan, I despise the Chicago River. To me, it’s a filthy cesspool with a long memory. I’m convinced there are still bodies down there from the Prohibition era, secrets wrapped in bones and silence. Meanwhile, people hop on boat tours every summer, skinning and grinning like the water didn’t just finish whispering threats.…
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It’s Okay to Cry
Forty-seven years ago, my mother had just gotten out of the hospital. She had been diagnosed with diabetes, and if my cousin Cleo hadn’t taken her in when she did, she would have slipped into a diabetic coma and died. That’s the part that still makes my chest tighten, even now. While she was hospitalized,…
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What Is Black?
“Black” is not a single thing. It’s a constellation. Black is a people, first—descendants of Africa scattered by history’s rough hands: trade winds, chains, migrations, love, survival. Not a monolith, not a hive mind. Nigerians, Haitians, Gullah Geechee, Afro-Brazilian, Black American, Somali, Jamaican—different tongues, foods, rhythms, gods, jokes. Same sun in the bones, different stories…
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Black Walnut Ice Cream
The weirdest things can unlock childhood memories. Yesterday, a friend mentioned how his mother used to eat black walnut ice cream, and suddenly a whole flood of memories came rushing back to me—uninvited, vivid, and sweet in that bittersweet way only the past knows how to be. Memory is funny like that. It doesn’t knock.…
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What cities do you want to visit? London, Edinburgh, Dublin, Paris, Rome, Athens, St. Petersburg, Lagos, Agra— I’ve read my way through these cities. Through their histories, their ruins and revolutions, their narrow streets and loud silences. Before my soul leaves this earth, I hope to see these places.
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The Potty Mouth Granny 