The Comeback

by Taliyah Lowe

When I step outside, I know it’s the first thing that people see.

I so desperately want it not to be, but it is, and I know it.

So, I walk with my head down, constantly staring at the slowly fading colors of my shoelaces, my hands in my pockets.

I fear the world seeing my skin color because it invites judgement and assumptions.

Black people are this and that,

More often than not,

It is negative.

I am black and I am proud, but sometimes it hard to be confident in a world that constantly tries to silence you.

Not wanting you to be seen.

Or heard.

Just invisible.

I walk side by side with fear.

Will I make it home tonight?

When I drive; I drive with caution of following every single road regulation, so I have no reason to be stopped.

When I watch the news, I look at the headlines to see what it is happening within my community.

Whether another family will have to bury another one, or will it be me burying someone I know and love?

This year, I promised myself this would be my comeback.

The names of the folks who were gone too soon consistently rings in the back of my mind, and it inspires me to keep going.

To live; and not just survive day after day.

To make them proud in some kind of way.

To make a difference of some kind, so that no one else will never have to put their beautiful trembling black hands in the sky and mutter ‘please don’t shoot’.

Eric Garner (43).

Breonna Taylor (26).

Ahmaud Arbery (25).

George Floyd (46).

Stephon Clark (22).

I can’t begin to tell you how long the list of names is.

The conversations about race can be uncomfortable, but they are so vital.

Imagine all that can be done if all of us offered an ear to each other.

We all bleed the same color.

We all feel love.

We all feel pain.

We are all human.

Let us comeback to each other.

I deeply believe we can.

I absolutely know we can.