There’s a quiet I only notice when I’m drafting letters to the me I haven’t met yet. I started a new piece last night, and the first line just showed up, casual as someone knocking on my door with a bag of oranges. “You are not required to be the same softness every day.” I blinked at it for a minute, then laughed, because who gave my inner voice permission to be this gentle and this bold at the same time? Must be the queer in me, the part that knows softness is a kind of audacity.
Sometimes my body feels the line before I do. Like my shoulders drop, or my jaw unclenches, and I realize—oh, I needed to hear that. Sometimes I write just to find out what my hands already know. The words come out messy, half-formed, but there’s always a tenderness in the mess. I’m not trying to clean it up too quickly. I like seeing my own handwriting stumble, loop, and pause. It’s a little queer, a little Black, a little confused, all at once. My drafts are never neat, but they’re honest. That matters more to me than sounding polished.
I used to think I had to write like I knew who I was becoming, but now I let myself be surprised. Sometimes it’s a softness I didn’t expect, or a line that feels like a hand on my back. Not dramatic. Just a quiet nudge, a reminder that I’m allowed to change shape, even within a single page. There’s something tender about looking at a line and knowing it came from a version of me that’s still arriving.
Tonight, I’m grateful for the mess and the small, soft surprises. I think that’s enough for now.