V. H. King's Ink

When I started (re)working on LitMiH, could not have imagined how much I would grow between revising poems on notebook paper and reviewing proof copies. Despite my best attempts at sharing my writing, I was always waiting for permission. I hoped someone would show me the ropes. I wanted to feel like I knew what I was doing. I thought I could prove myself worthy of the pedestal everyone put me on, but I didn’t realize they would abandon me once I was up there.

I grew up with people expecting me to do great things—which is fine, except those same people also thought I didn’t need any help. I may have figured a lot of stuff out on my own, but it came at an extremely high price.  My physical health is just one casualty of people saying “you’ll figure it out!” with a flippant shrug. Maybe my mental health never stood a chance.  I learned early on in life that people could not or would not help me.

Closed mouths don’t get fed, but my open mouth kept getting smacked and starved.
So I decided to shut up.

For most of my life, I’ve never been “Black enough” for other Black people.  I’ve been told I’m “not really Black” by Black and white folks alike. I’ve been made fun of, ignored, and excluded on all sides. I was never the right kind of anything, but I tried to make up for it by at least being a hard worker.

There’s no safety in that either, though. Not when your workplace doesn’t care about the dangers you face just trying to get in the door. Not when murders and riots are just “business as usual”. Not when your health fails and the life you tried to build crumbles.

(Yes, I’m talking about myself.)

But I’m also talking about my coworkers, and maybe some of yours, too.

I might even be talking about you.

I’m talking about the people I hoped would be my friends but don’t really feel close to.  I’m talking about people I’ve never met and people I’ve lost, because their stories matter too. I am not the only one who has spent so much of their life trying to be worthy—only to be dismissed in spaces I thought I’d have a voice, and belittled by those I thought would support me.

Eventually, I stopped hoping for the kind of community everyone kept saying I would find. I had friends, but no one nearby. There wasn’t anyone I trusted to call when I was dealing with the worst of my suicidal ideation and self-harm.  I showed up for my friends, I kept up a stellar work ethic so they’d have to find some other reason to fire me, and I quietly hoped I would die.

In light of Breonna Taylor’s and Sonya Massey’s murders, who gave a shit? I would be just another name they’d forget to say.  The history pages would have about as much room for me as the world did—which is to say none at all, because it was too full of bloodshed and animosity, callous hearts intent on destroying anyone like me.

And that same red-drenched hatred is what gave me the courage to speak.

Some people will only see LitMiH as another collection of anger and trauma. Granted, I am screaming at the top of my lungs. I’ve spent too much time starving myself into silence. I’ve held my tongue, trading my peace for something that passed as merit.  So now that I’ve decided to open my mouth, what do I have to say?

I will not apologize for everything I lived through.
I’m not done living yet.
And I’m not the only one.

In the days following the 2024 elections, friends and acquaintances checked on me. I have little confidence in systems and institutions, because they will always be as flawed as their creators. I don’t know how I expected to feel, but I’m also not surprised by how I do feel.

Dedicated. Confident.  Motivated.

Existence is mysterious, and I know how precious, how radical, it is to look upon the world with wonder and hope and faith. For every recurrence of hate and injustice that retraumatizes me, I will also recover my confidence in my worth, my path, my purpose. Fuck anyone else’s permission.

And while I’m at it, fuck the industry standards and the social media trends.  Fuck online discourse and my dad’s expectations.

I refuse to measure myself by values and systems that do not honor my inherent worth.

One day, regardless of the reason, I’m going to die. Until then, no matter who is in power—I will share my work with the faith, the hope, that my stories and art and poetry will hold space for people.

To grieve, to be angry, to hope, to imagine. To rethink things they thought they already knew. To consider themselves and others with greater empathy and kindness and honesty.

Because this too is prayer.