I have never told anyone this. I struggle with my identity. Not in the way people might assume. I know who I am. But I do not know who I am allowed to be. As a Black man, I feel the pressure to be hard, to never show weakness, to carry the weight of generational expectations. But inside, I am soft. I write poetry. I cry at films. I want to be held sometimes without it meaning anything other than comfort.
This is the first time I have ever put those words anywhere outside my own head.