I want you to kiss me on neck and mean it
Tell me to soak my feet cause you know I need it
I want LOVE
Not a cosplay of what you think it means to
Not what makes a woman a housewife
Not what makes a man a provider
I want devotion
Emotional depth
And spiritual notions of what it means to be human
A love that make folk ask questions
Of themselves
Of the world
Of what's possible
Of what could be
Of what futures could exist
I want LOVE
- 7souljah
I’ve been intentionally dating for quite some time and realized how exhausted I am. I’ve been finding myself pondering love…wanting partnership but never at the expense of myself. I wonder if we even know how to love anymore—love in a way that calls you into action. Not just romantically either, but communally. Like, does our collective love for Blackness call us to action? It has called me, and so has my deep love for Black men. It calls me. And I wonder: will it ever find me?
Not in a pessimistic way, but in a way that makes me reflect on the state of relationships between Black men and Black women.
See, I’ve been having dreams about a love I have yet to experience. This isn’t new, but it is comforting sometimes—to meet and experience a love on a spiritual level without all the complicated stuff that often comes with love between humans. I don’t want my love to be complicated. I want it to be easy, a comfort, a support, a tender hug that holds you in spaces you didn’t realize you needed to be embraced but absolutely NEEDED to be.
It’s interesting because I’ve recently grown a little tired of love—or rather, dating for love…dating intentionally. Sometimes it feels like even when I do the right thing and don’t sabotage it, maybe they will. That doesn’t sound very healed, but it’s real. I’ll bring it up with my therapist later.
We’re all so full of pain and things holding us back from that full embrace I spoke about. I don’t want a love that doesn’t feel like that—on a spiritual and emotional level. Physical touch doesn’t matter as much if you feel like you’re a world away emotionally and mentally. What the hell is the point? There is none to me.
I’m starting to realize love is more of a mental, emotional, and spiritual connection and action than anything you could EVER physically experience with someone—via a hug or otherwise. Maybe that’s what the dream was showing me: the depth at which the embrace of love can go, the depth of the love I will experience.
In the dream, it was a simple moment of embrace, but it was loaded with emotional and spiritual depth and care. I just wanted to let go when I felt his embrace. I leaned in and melted a bit. It was tender and almost timid, as if he had so much more he could give me—but also sure, very sure of the love he had to offer.
Who this person manifested as in my dreams is quite hilarious but comforting nonetheless. All I can say is that I love Black men so much. I mourn for myself when I mourn for the pain Black men experience—the pain that causes them to sabotage or run from their emotions and more radical connections, and vice versa. That’s an embrace I think we all seek, whether they say it or not.
We all want LOVE—to be loved and embraced by a significant other who holds the parts of your mental and emotional bodies you know needed to be embraced but didn’t know if they could or would. Self-love is no replacement for that. Maybe that’s why love is the most sung about thing in songs. It’s like a soul itch that needed to be scratched, and finally it was. Imagine the relief.
But I had to wake up from my dream. I hope it’s sweeter in person, but until then, I’ll find comfort in my dreams. I’ll find comfort in an aspiring love.
Song Recommendation: Alex Isley - Paradise
Have the courage to love,
7Souljah