A Fairytale for Black Girls

prologue.

I guess you figured out change and how inevitable it is.

No matter how much you plan and build expectations up to the heights of NYC skyscrapers, it seems to have the last say in things.

The posters from classrooms in primary school screamed lies:

"Dream big! Reach for the stars!"

After a while, those things called "dreams" barely even mattered when you were asleep.

When their fate was being crushed by the weight of reality whenever you woke up, they mattered even less. The more insignificant they became, the faster time passed you by and it was eventually enough to age you from a child to an adult.

We're still the same person but ... I barely recognize you anymore.

One day, you're an aspiring writer with blisters on your pinky from forcing a pen to a pad. You would romanticize every aspect of your life from the people you'd see on the way to school to the temperature of the air you'd breathe on your walk back home.

Many things in your life at the time would go to shit but, you had an escape. It was a place where everything was okay, remember?

There were lots of white, fluffy clouds shaped like stuffed animals that ran in slow motion across the constant blue sky as the sun kissed your skin. Warm winds blew through your curls, cicadas and birds sung in harmony. Time didn't exist to age you any more than you wanted it to and neither did negativity.

It was just you, your pen and your notebook.

Unfortunately, the next day (and every day that followed), it seemed like your access code to your world of perfection no longer worked and you were no longer able to run away from reality. It consumed you and now you hate everything because all of the odds never seem to be in your favor.

Your room is filled with the remnants of my abandoned hobbies.

My instrument sits on top of sheet music against your wall, collecting dust.

My drawings that you now see as 'half-ass' cling onto the sheet rock by barely sticking tape.

My paintings that you now see as 'shit', stacked upon one another in your closet that you left open in a rush to go clock-in on time.

It's a miracle if you even have time to write a legible signature on a receipt, let alone have enough time to sit down and intentionally produce any new work. You're no longer inspired, you see writing as a chore and everything is better left unsaid.

You keep your thoughts in your head.
No one cares. Neither should you.
But still you do, don't you?

Don't you think we still deserve to have our dreams come true?

The days of going to your room and flooding your ears with your favorite tunes to drown out the real world as you write yourself into another one, a better one, are over for sure.

Solely dwelling on the thought of your own fairytale no longer serves you, this is true.

But don't you think that just means it's time to bring it to reality for us?
Shouldn't you find a way to make things come to fruition for us?
For me?

What happened to us?

Hello?
Are you listening to me?

Where are you going?

You're leaving?
You're changing?

Will I ever see you again?

...

Will you ever come back for me?

"No." I groaned, closing my notebook after reading my last entry for the 50th time in search of inspiration.

It had been years since that entry and I hadn't picked up a pen to write again ever since.

"Get your head out of the clouds and into the game—" The devil on my left shoulder growled.

I smirked, putting my stationery away then decided on giving in and finishing the statement over a sigh, ". . . there's no such thing as fairytales for a black girl."

Turning out my desk lamp, I got into bed and prayed for a dreamless night.

I didn't want to waste a good night's sleep on the ghost of my younger self selling me a dream I couldn't make come true for her.

Even if I still wanted to, I couldn't.
No matter how much I tried.

And there was no knight or dame in shining armor to come and salvage what's left of her or even just help me do it like she swore there was.

And even if there was, I didn't have time to wait on them anymore.

I only time to. study to graduate, get a good paying job and work to make money to eat, take a shit here and there, protest racism from time to time when it was normal to do so publicly and protect black men no matter how shit they are to black women. 

At some point in time, I'll get a 401K after years of being a little obedient black girl for The Man then end up retiring and dying soon after, hoping that there's enough retirement money left over for the burden of my funeral on whoever ends up being financially responsible for it.

At what point in that am I supposed to follow a dream? There is no point in time for that.

So,
when I sleep tonight,
I don't want nor do I need
a dream.

Just quality sleep for energy to fake a smile in the face of The Man tomorrow.

I already have "the American dream" anyways. That's all I need.