659 Search results for "i used to love her"

Losing Recipes: Love in the Age of Ghosting
by Naiquan. Last summer, a friend and I realized we hadn’t seen children playing in the fire hydrant. No elder on the block with a key to unlock the “Johnny Pump”. As a child of the Brooklyn Spike Lee portrayed in “Crooklyn,” I know first-hand the feelings of protection and support from my neighbor’s grandfather, […]
“Almost There”
by Desmond King On Thursday I found myself with a bleeding tongue Warm water washed over my soapy hands, blood filling my mouth I did not speak when he said “We’re almost there” My tongue is used to being bit open, to keep the peace To keep secrets What does “Friday’s Eve” even mean? Constantly […]
What We Carry: A Coming-of-Age Tale of Grief, Therapy, and Reckoning
by Christian M. Ivey “What We Carry” is a powerful coming-of-age story that follows Drew, a young Black college student grappling with grief, anxiety, and the long shadow of racial trauma. Get yo ass up, Drew! My alarm rang, a nasty, raggedy rang, almost soundin’ like it was yellin’ at me. Get yo ass up, […]
Three Ways to Love Black
by Benji Hart 1. I’m a teenager, attending the annual Kwanzaa celebration at Amherst College, the small private school where my dad is a professor. A modest band of Black students and faculty have gathered for dinner in the Octagon. The plaster building, lemon meringue in both color and texture, was reclaimed […]
Poverty appropriation & the moral depravity of a society where elite education has the highest stakes
Editor’s Note: This month at BYP, we will be exploring Education & Schooling, and we are interested in publishing works that address these topics. What are the implications of charter and private schools in communities of color? How do we counteract anti-Black textbooks and teachers in our children’s education? How did you heal from bullying […]
Used in a relentless pursuit of the elusive middle class, side hustle culture is killing Black folx
Editor’s Note: This month at BYP, we will be exploring Black Liberation & Organizing, and we are interested in publishing works that address these topics. How do we hold politicians accountable to Black communities? Is that even possible? What should be our role in the electoral politics? What does abolition look like in practice? What […]
My grandmother shows me what’s possible as a survivor of sexual violence
by J.A.O. Trigger and Content Warnings: This piece contains themes and descriptions of sexual and gender-based violence/r*pe, child abuse, death, and suicide. The most isolating of the identities I claim is my status as a survivor of both childhood sex abuse and of repeated rape in my adulthood. Sometimes, I find an incredible amount of […]
My mother proved protection is possible without police, even if she doesn’t know it
Sometimes, an answer is not an answer to everyone. Sometimes, whether something is an answer depends, like seeing a blue or gold dress or hearing yanny or laurel in that auditory illusion. Or like when Black people are finally allowed in token numbers to receive a few of the laurels we hear we should always […]
How Black people mourn the loss of a Superhero
The day I thought that Chadwick Boseman was James Brown, he lit up the screen with his rosewood colored skin and small gap. He was not the real James Brown except that he was, for over two hours he was James Brown. “Get On Up” was the first time I’d seen Chadwick’s acting skills, but […]
Beloved Black sitcoms and what we can learn from nostalgia
A host of popular Black shows from the 90s and early 2000s are finally being made available to stream this year, and many of us are rejoicing. As we should. There has been a glaring gap on popular streaming platforms lacking Black shows from this era and it’s nothing less than egregious. We deserve to […]
How the imagination of the ‘Lovecraft Country’ writer’s room failed us
by Kamilah Bush This essay discusses sexual assault and r/pe. The first episode of HBO’s Lovecraft Country is possibly one of the most perfect television pilots of all time, in my opinion. The opening shot, drops us in the middle of a typical enough looking war scene—it is a familiar cinematic landscape with images we […]
How I used my names as a vehicle for my non-binary identity exploration
by JAO I realized I am non-binary my second year of undergrad. One morning, as I was getting ready for class, I looked in the mirror like I had tons of times before. And for whatever reason, on that day, I no longer saw a girl. I wasn’t sure what or who I was seeing, […]