Black love.
I will not understand your pain
Until you feel my rage in its entirety.

I will not empathize with every death that leaves me just a little more dead
Like starting with numbness—fingers with needles in the tips
Like a blackened lung that will no longer process breath
Like the my fourth toe on my right foot hardening and falling off
Like my left shin (grey on the side) faded and deceased like frost-bitten flesh
Like no nipples left from malignant ravaging
Like three locs of my hair falling out randomly—but not
Like a kidney pounded and destroyed by blood desperately running from stress
Like a vagina sewn tightly with straw and rock
Like my back covered in scales, dark and dry and lifeless
Like fat smothering a heart that is ready to stop breaking

Ready to stop breaking.

This is a lie. I feel your pain because it is my pain inside of your body.

But you will never feel my rage.
You don’t believe it’s real.