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.