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.