Maco L. Faniel

I wanna say something but the words that I wanna say are fighting through the pain that crowds my brain.

I wanna love so hard that you never know what it feels like to be unloved.

But I’ve been unloved and as much as I want love, I don’t trust love, or that someone can love me the way that I need to be loved, so I struggle with love.

Not that I can’t give it.

But sometimes I don’t know if I can receive it.

But I still grieve it.

And I know that I need it.

I need love like I need air to breathe.

I need love that will allow me to be, not love that wants me to be something that I will never be—somebody else or something to make you comfortable.

I need love that conquers all, even those small devils.

You see love for me is in the details.

Not just you saying it, which matters so much

But love is at the end of your finger’s touch

Gliding through the contours of my waves or down from my wrist to my fingers.

Love is that question after a long day that says “How was your day?”

Love is telling me to call my mama cause sometimes I forget.

Love is me proving to you that it’s okay for you to be who you are at every moment

So I love you when you are excited, depressed, angry, in pain, delirious, depressed, sad, crazy, inspired, melancholic, sexy, on bad hair days, on good hair days, when dem folk at your job get on your nerves, when you are unsure of who you are, when you are sure of who you are, in your yoga pants, in a bad ass dress, in my gym shorts, when your breath stank, when your nails have that little bit of nail polish left on it that I keep looking at wondering when you go get that taken care of, cause my love is that constant.

But damn it.
I don’t get it.

~ Maco L. Faniel

Today is one if those days when I am assured of God’s grace and mercy because as I look around me and travel the road that I am on, I know that it was nothing but God cause black men from where I am from don’t do this. So, I am thankful. But today is also one of those days when I question if God is partial because I don’t understand why me. There were people who were more prepared 16 years ago than I was when I began undergrad. I did not go to prep school. I did not read books or go to camp. I cut yards and washed cars. I hung out. There were people who made less mistakes than I have made. There were people who were supposed to be doing more. Yeah I stay hungry, but to me that is still not the answer. Yes, I have sacrificed so much, but that is still not the answer. I don’t get it. I hate using the phrase “I’m blessed” because I don’t understand how a good God would allow me to be blessed and not the 15000 homeless people in Houston to have the same blessings. As such, I hate the prosperity gospel and all other forms of preaching or discourses that suggest that poor people, homeless people, working class folks, etc. have done something wrong or not done enough to make it because we forget that there was some type of patronage or affirmative action that helped us out. So, since I don’t have the answer I try my damnest to eliminate the evil of this world, cause there were some prayers, moanings, groanings, grace, and mercy on my side that allowed me to be, so I have to do it for others.

“To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.”

– James Baldwin

“My final prayer:
O my body, make of me always a man who questions!”

– Frantz Fanon, “Black Skin, White Masks”

“There is that great proverb — that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”

– Chinua Achebe