The Water Dancer

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

I was young and love to me was a fuse that was lit, not a garden that was grown.

Love was not concerned with any deep knowledge of its object, of their wants and dreams, but mainly with the joy felt in their presence and the sickness felt in their departure.

Slavery was the root of all struggle. For it was said that the factories enslaved the hands of children, and that child-bearing enslaved the bodies of women, and that rum enslaved the souls of men.

Perhaps you know about this, a pain that reaches out and falls over your heart like night.