Often times I hear the words “My soul is as dark as my skin” flow out of my mouth.
It is often followed by ooh’s and aah’s from the mouth of my listeners.
Their reaction is based on the fact they assume a dark soul means a cold heartless soul.
They look at my skin, in all its chocolate and golden glory and assume it’s wrong for my soul to look that way.
They’re wrong.
My black is beautiful.
When I say my soul is as dark as my skin, I mean it is rich, beautiful, mesmerizing and glowing.
The world is prejudiced to the belief that black is ugly that they don’t see that is simply too beautiful for their eyes to comprehend.
Just like my skin, my soul doesn’t get burned
I require minimal SPF for my strong soul.
Just like my skin, my soul glows.
It radiates all the love I have inside and all the love I pour out.
Just like my skin, my soul is rich.
I have a philanthropic personality that infects all those around me.
Just like my skin, my dark, melanin-filled, rich, golden, glazed soul is beautiful.
Dear Tolu,
I am absolutely stunned by your piece and your style of writing. I love how your words fall so gracefully off tongue and flow in a pattern. The soul thoroughly sets it’s voice to be recognized by the color of skin to show the beauty and importance of inner radiance. My favorite add-in into this is the fact you constantly put your skin being the center of attention yet reflects the purity of the soul’s prosperity and truth. It really has outspoken one of the world’s problems to be judgmental over anyone’s appearance which in this case is the judgement over skin. This really sets a confidence into other people to recognize that they shouldn’t be looked at as any less from societal standards.
As far as your writing goes, I would love to see more writing into your work as I feel like it doesn’t exceed at that 350 minimum word limit. I would love to see more use of vocabulary to add that empowerment to your writing as well.
Overall, I enjoyed having the time to spend reading over your writing piece!
Sincerely, Zainab.K
Dearest Tolu,
I love you so much you don’t even know. I Loved your poem and how you don’t care what people think about you. You are an amazing person and you just keep being you because no one matters but yourself. I love you so much
Love,
Rania
Tolu,
After hearing you read this piece in class I was amazed. In the moment, I did not have any words that could follow yours up. Hopefully, now, I can do a better job of showing you my appreciation and love for this piece of wiring.
Often times, people shy away from writing about anything deeply personal or meaningful. Clearly, in this piece, for you, that was not that case. Not only is choosing to write this kind of piece take a huge level of self-awareness, sharing it in front of an entire class is not for the faint-hearted. That kind of courage is commendable.
For me, the element of this piece that really pushed it over the edge was the connection you drew between your physical and inner self. Doing this effectively can be extremely difficult, even coming off as tacky if done incorrectly. In the case of your piece, it was the exact opposite. Perfect; it, honestly, gave me chills.
No critiques, I absolutely LOVE this piece.
Kanchan
Dear Kanchan,
I am very happy you were touched by my piece. I had no idea it would become very significant to many people. I am very glad you like this. Thank you very much.
With love,
Tolu