no, you really don't know...

"I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to that sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world — I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife." - zora neale hurston

i will never apologize for being who i am, nor will i apologize for other folks insecurities regarding my existence. i'm black and i'm proud and if you feel threatened by that, that's on you. i'm not here to take away from you, i'm here to build my own. i don't covet what you have because i know i'm responsible for getting what i want. i know my own value. i won't let you define me because that ain't your job or your right. i don't need you to validate me. please know my first priority is checking myself and my folk before i even CONTEMPLATE checking you. i don't measure my shine by yours as there's enough light in the world for all of us. loving me doesn't mean hating you, it means LOVING ME.

LOVING the black woman i am with the thick legs i got from my granny and birthing hips i got from my momma and the unadulterated coffee brown beauty i got from africa

LOVING how i rock it loc'd and laugh at those attempting to mock me

LOVING my soupcatcher lips that can strip the flesh from a chicken bone or suck the moan right out of a man

LOVING how i can 'speak to my peeps like dis' or 'expound in exacting vernacular to them like that'

LOVING that i can 'write about folk fucking' or 'compose prose on the comparison of his strokes to the soft petals of a rose'.

LOVING my skin's ability to ward off weapons of destruction, bear invisible tattoos of past hurts encryptions, yet still be so magnificent as to surpass all words of description

LOVING my BIGNESS - my ideas, my aspirations, my laugh, my ass

LOVING the baggage i discard one piece at a time

LOVING the sense of empowerment that comes with knowing that no matter what you say or do, I control THIS ri'chea.

LOVING the rainbow reflected in my soul...my blue moods, my red rage, my green experience, my yellow fear, my black thoughts

LOVING what makes me uniquely nikki

and not ONE of you mothafuckas can EVER take that away from me.