Ethic

by Ashley Antoinette

Ethic was different. Ethic wanted his wife to be a sister; black, mixed with blacker, full of sweet juice and scented like shea butter. He wanted the woman he ended up with to be able to relate to his experience, to know what it was like to have strength and resilience, not because it was learned, but because it was inherited from generations of black people who had to be strong before her. He wanted nappy hair and intelligence. He wanted a woman that could make a feast out of a bag of beans and a neck bone, if he fell on hard times, and it was all he could afford. A woman who could raise his children, if his karma came and took him away prematurely.

A man without a woman was half of a man, emotionally stunted, and overcompensating in every area of his life to make up for what he lacked in companionship.