THE PATH WE WALKED TO BECOME Black women wasn’t straight; it was a loop. Starting from nowhere, it brought you back to nowhere. A man at one end, a man at the other, humming the same song, “It’s just a body. Nothing special.” If that were true, why did they want it? Why couldn’t it belong to me? Mama called it child’s want, something you grow out of. But the moment I recognized this loop existed, I poked holes at it to find an exit.
