the possibility of vulnerability

Photo by Sergi Dolcet Escrig on Unsplash

there is a balm in the vulnerability of a black woman

the way she allows her charges to come to her with open arms

she doesn’t turn them away, or expect them to know from thin air

she helps

and knows her boundaries

there are no cutting words she speaks or vague emails that leave you confused and too afraid to say so

but the vulnerable one, and the one who is growing into their vulnerability understands that the tower — ivory, R2 or something entirely different —wasn’t meant for them, wasn’t meant for we

but they got through and they share and break open paths

till one day, the hallways are big enough for us all

that vulnerability then becomes freedom from a future of institutional trauma, that becomes liberation in a treacherous sea