. . .And The Winner Is

     What are we fighting for? Why are we always competing, running a race to get to an invisible finish line where the prize is nothing? I can no longer tiptoe through the tulips of truth. This truth is ugly. The “crabs in the barrel theory” amongst African American women leaves us all starving. We are starving for the things that we, as well as our children are entitled to. We wear our numbers like badges of honor, but they are actually reminders of the battle scars in a war we all lost. We are casualties of our low self-esteem, allowing our bodies to be used as a means to an end. The end result is alone. We become fragmented casualties of a loaded gun held in the hand of a broken man playing Russian roulette with our heart. The trigger gets pulled one too many times, then tag, you’re it! We cry real tears of a reality that we created for the children we claim to love. The thought of continuing to give our bodies to a man that abandoned our offspring makes our ability to love questionable. How do we give something that we don’t have? We can’t lend someone $100 if our bank account is overdrawn. Let’s keep it real. Many times as women we walk around with blinders on, thinking that we can love a man into wholeness. We look at the other women that he victimized before us and compare ourselves to them. We think we’re thinner, we look better, we look happier. What we don’t realize is that she used to look like us until the man we have now tore her life apart. Let that sink in! None of us are exempt. A broken man will play target practice with every woman that allows herself to be the arrow. Who do we become after a broken man has broken us? We have now become a victim on a long list of casualties that are never claimed. Our sisterhood is lost. It’s buried under the rubbish of years of disloyalty and self-hatred. We try to fit into the great melting pot of superficial assessments, so we decorate ourselves and run. Who is this masked woman? Nobody really knows because she hasn’t been seen in years. The milk carton with her face on the back has expired. She’s become a member of the “Broken and Lost” competition. We look to our left and then to our right and realize that these ladies look just like us. See there is no prize at the end of this race. This race only leads to the reality of another bad decision. We must break the distorted mirror that shows us a false representation that we are not enough. Beauty has many definitions and the right beholder can recognize and appreciate the difference. . . . . And the winner is? Nobody!