Dedicated to the girls in the 100 Heart Program at Fairfield High Preparatory School, this poem intertwined their motivational stories.

Read Black Girl Story Part 1  here

Four months later and the bump is half near showing.
I’ve been declaring flu sickness
making sure I was the only one knowing
of this struggle and pain created inside of me
begging for some type of clarity
on why this was happening to me.

My mother hit me.
Kind of surprising she put down the bottle
to focus herself on my body.
She was angry that dad came.
Wanting to prove how well she was doing
and I with my six-month bloated stomach
was the disgusting picture of black poverty.

My dreams and goals had no meaning.
I tried to carve myself into perfection ,
cutting off the skin that ruined me
because only black girls struggle like this
so maybe if I’m red and white
I can change my future into one that’s bright.

My dad left me.
But I’ve become so used to it by now it has no meaning.
And sometimes Auntie comes by to reassure me
I’ll be okay. Tells me she “likes” me, she kisses me, she holds me.
She keeps touching me.
Am I disgusted? Bc the same touch from a mother
and one from a lover are not the same.
If her intentions were motherly
she wouldn’t take me through this sexually confused pain.

Everything terrible took over.
I was drunk from love, and now I’m sober.
I had to make things better.
I had to quit cutting, quit dating, quit over thinking
about what I would’ve been and what I could’ve been
if I wasn’t born black.
Because living the black girl story
seemed all too overwhelming.
Society’s way of stabbing me in the back.
Or maybe it’s just me.
Wrong paths, wrong people, wrong energy and it leads me
into wrong cycles.

I needed to make a turn.
I needed new faces in New places in a new life.
But to have a plan, you need a goal
and to reach your goal you need a plan.
Why did It take me so long to understand?

I had to do this by myself.
Self-recovery took time
but I had a month left before I gave birth
to a black stereotype. And for the first time
I looked up to the heavens and blessed the child
coming into the world asking for the cycle of
pain and abandonment to end
so this baby’s life would peacefully begin.

And then. . .

Things became still.
The air was still, the room was still,
the baby monitor was still. . . stillborn.
I thought my life ended with my daughter’s.
They let me hold her, and when I saw her, I prayed again.
This time, I wanted my suffering to end.

Years passed, and I graduate high school.
College became a realistic option.
New friends and better goals gave motivation.
I was unstoppable.
My life went through new creations.

I vowed to remember my story
because to inspire another you have to
experience rough journeys
and tribulations
and live to speak of a better generation.

I vow not to be stereotypically black
because if that’s what society thinks of me
With my melanin power, I will fight back.
Scream no more pain, speak no more harm
For the daughter I once had.
`For I have the story of a black girl
and I dare not to be stereotypically black.

Sunday Owens. I am currently a junior at Fairfield High Preparatory School in Alabama. I enjoy reading and hope to be a best selling author in the future. IG @sunnydnumber3 Read more posts here zorintiger101 – Wattpad

Written By: Sunday Owens, Staff Writer, #BlackGirlProblems