Love Poem: Ode To Black Men From a Black Woman
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Written by: Amanda Mawu

Ode To Black Men From a Black Woman

Dear Black Man, 

Shout out to your deep waved, shaggy, Afro picking outlines. In honor of the loose fitting jeans with the snap backed, wide hip loving, story telling beats that carry on like the echos of the Congo drums from the motherland. Black Man, I Black woman, am not here today in the name of needing my beauty sanctioned or demanding R-E-S-P-E-C-T from you. I am not angry at you, I am  not angry with myself. I am angry with the systems operation on our children' self worth. Don't ever think I am here to stunt your growth. I am Black woman, whose being is the closest thing to God. Whose body is in conjunction with the earth, boring life, as the birds and bees have come to be. My appreciation for you goes on and on like the munchies of the fiend. Though I will never truly understand all the turmoil this earth brings to your face. We share burdens which are too similar to ignore. I see you, Black man, working hard with no reward. Watching your brothers getting stolen and washed away. I see you scared for your lives, running from the greatness of which your sons and fathers possess . Is it that you don't want to show them the potential that has been taken away from your lips? Black man, I uphold your royalty, you are nothing like they make of you to be. Grab your brother's hand and lift it up in solidarity. I black woman, am dignified to stand by you, and fight through any war in the honor of our people. Black man, I hear you. I feel you. I am black woman, whose name should soothe your worried shaken ambitions. Black man, over time your inventions have been gripped by the European counterparts that fear you so much that they intruded your Black women in plain sight. As deep as the hurts appears to be, You and I are the strongest unit, Black love is one of the most sacred existences that there is. Lets turn away from the road of shame, moving toward the flight to recovering and discovering the greatness of who you are.
Love, 
A black woman.