"What Woke Me" —from the voice of the land beneath... I was not dead. I was not barren. I was listening. Low in the loam. Deep in the hush beneath boot and hoof, I curled myself in waiting. Not silence. Not sleep. Only patience, like seeds before the thaw. I have known many names, but few have ever spoken them rightly. Not the maps, not the deeds, not the men who cut and called me theirs. But him— he walked not upon me, but with me. His sorrow did not shame me. His change— ah! It cracked the crust above the buried drum and set it beating. He wept once, not loudly—just enough. And I drank that grief like spring water. He dared to kneel. To feel. To offer the kiss of roots with his bare hands. To remember. And so I did too. Something in his breath told me: It is time. I am no longer the witness of stillborn dreams. I am the cradle of his rising. And he—my son made spirit-flesh again— has called my true name without knowing it. I am becoming again because he is becoming. Let the stones rise. Let the breeze carry memory. Let the moss uncover what was forgotten. I will not sleep again. Not while he walks. R Hughes

Benediction Go now, beloved, and do not shrink. Let your love be as large as your lineage, as full as your hunger, as unapologetic as your shadow at noon. Hold your history like a torch, not a wound. And when they do not stay— let them go. You were not built to be abandoned. You were built to become. Feed those who stay. Kiss those who honor. Touch those who listen. And above all, return to your own arms when the night comes calling. You are the prayer. You are the fire. You are the last word on your own worth. And no one, not even silence, gets to answer for you. Amen. And Ashe. And so it is.

4. When I Love Myself After them— the ones who came for my warmth but not my weather, the ones who drank from my well but never stayed to till the soil— I found myself again at the edge of the grove, barefoot, dark-skinned, unbowed. I looked in the mirror and saw my own hands— the ones that have fed men, blessed men, buried men. And I kissed my knuckles like they were gospel. I ran a bath in silence. Lit a candle for every boy who couldn’t love me. Then one for the man who did. And two more for the one who never left— the one whose laughter lives in my own throat. Me. I touched my own chest and whispered, You are not lonely. You are layered. You are not broken. You are born. I made oxtails and cornbread for myself and said grace aloud, thanked the line of Black men who chose softness over spectacle, who dared to love each other in a world that barely lets us breathe. I danced slow in my room, hard and soft at once, and I felt my body swell— not with need, but with knowing. That this temple, this tenderness, this thunder I carry in my blood, does not wait for white recognition. It does not beg for return. It is already whole.

3. When a Black Man Loves Me Back The first time he touched me, I didn’t flinch. Not because I wasn’t afraid— but because he wasn’t. He had hands like mine. Dark, scarred, soft at the palms. He smelled like woodsmoke and the South, like something my grandmother dreamed of but never said aloud. He didn’t ask for permission to understand me. He knew. Knew what it meant to be stared at and never seen. To be lusted for and still alone. To be too much and too little in the same breath. We made love like it was language the world forgot. He said my name like prayer, and I said his like homecoming. There was no translation needed. Only breath. Only rhythm. Only the hum between our spines that said: We are still here. We have always been here. And this love—this love—is older than empire. We did not conquer. We did not flee. We stayed. And when the morning came, our skin still touching, I whispered, Brother, this is what freedom feels like. And he said, I know.

2. When I Loved Two White Boys Who Wouldn’t Stay I loved them both. Not at once, not exactly. But the ache overlapped— like bruises blooming on the same side of the body. The first one let me hold him, but only in shadows. Said I made him feel seen, but never let me be seen beside him. The second one came like prayer and left like a memory. He called me sacred, then washed me off his hands like I was sin. They loved how I held them. How I never asked them to be anything but human. But they never held me that way. Not fully. Not with their names behind it. They kissed me like a secret, fucked me like confession, left me like history— unsaid, unresolved, unbothered. And I burned. Not from shame. But from the truth I couldn’t unsee: that they wanted the warmth of me without the weight. But I carried that weight. Like my mama’s songs. Like my daddy’s silence. Like the bones of the men who never got to love like this. I no longer offer my fire to those who mistake it for light. If they cannot sit in the heat with me, they will not have my hands, or my food, or my name.

1. When a White Man Is Loved by Me When I love a white man, he does not know the scale of it at first. He sees my body—tall, dark, broad-chested— and maybe he sees beauty. Maybe lust. But not the altar I am building beneath his name. He does not yet feel the hush in my chest when I touch him like I mean it. Like the world didn’t teach me to turn away. Like I wasn’t taught to protect myself from the history in his skin. But I do love him— like I love my people: with depth, with fire, with the unshakable quiet of someone who has buried too many but still sings. He looks at me, and sometimes he thinks he’s loving me back. But I can see the hesitation— in the tremble of his fingers, in the way he searches for a metaphor instead of saying my name. I become the sermon he listens to but won’t carry home. Still, I give him more. I let him fall asleep on my chest, and I don’t say it, but I think—this is the safest place you’ve ever been. And when he weeps—if he weeps— I know it is not sadness. It is recognition. It is his undoing. It is the first time the ghost of empire has been kissed quiet.

When a Black man loves another Black man, the earth remembers something sacred. The trees lean in. The ancestors hum. The stars blink a little slower, as if bearing witness to something holy. It is not just desire—though desire is there, thick and sweet as cane syrup. It is recognition. Two mirrors catching each other’s light. Two sons of survival saying I see you without needing to explain a damn thing. When a Black man loves another Black man, there are no masks, only the shedding of them. The way his laugh echoes in a kitchen late at night. The way calloused hands rest gently on cocoa shoulders. The way they speak in half-sentences and whole truths. They have walked through the same fire, worn the same armor, danced to the same beat that this world tried to silence. They know the code, the nod, the weight of eyes that watch them too closely or not at all. And still—they bloom. This love is not easy. It is not made for movies. It is made of protest and prayer. Of long stares across crowded rooms. Of knowing how to be soft in a world that calls you hard. When a Black man loves another Black man, it is a love that history could not kill. That empires could not name. That slave ships could not drown. It is a love that moves through the blood like memory— older than America, deeper than pain. And when they hold each other, really hold each other— it is not just arms wrapped tight. It is sanctuary. It is survival. It is song. It is Black love— full, free, and finally home. R Hughes 2025