to a young black person from a young black person

By: Danielle M. Davis

Published in The Black Sunflower

There comes a moment in every young black person’s life when they wish they could scrub the darkness from their skin and live simply. When their parents sit them down to tell them: “Life is going to be different for you.” “Life is going to be dangerous.”

That is the way of things.

There will be times when they loathe themselves for the color of their skin, when they envy the fair complexions of their friends.

When they wake up asking any god that will listen: “Why? Why when you settled upon me did you dip your paintbrush into the night sky? Why not the clouds? And for what reason do you condemn my people? What cause did we give for the endless years of suffering and bloodshed?

To this I answer:

You are not condemned. You are not condemned. You are not condemned.

You are destined. Because your being here required the quick-minded resilience of your ancestors. Because they would not have fought if they did not believe you were excellent in every way.

And true, history has given your people many reasons to give in, to submit, to bow quietly away. But they did not bow, they did not waver, they did not break. And neither shall you, by the strength of your blood.

There will still be days when you wish you did not have to be strong. And you will wish you did not have to fix armor into your skin before waking. That is perfectly normal. But it is also normal to feel pride.

Yes, let pride swell in your system. And condemn not yourself but the shame that once ruled. Let it dry with the forgotten pages of history. And let your sunlight burn through the paper.

The Beginning of the End

By: Danielle M. Davis

Published in The Comma

She’d been a pauper in life but her corpse is something divine.

All the vastness of the universe hidden in the rot of her limbs,

in the bouquets of broken blood vessels, and in the pearl skull—split at the center.

All the secrets of science scrawled along the throat stitches, where once a cherished necklace would’ve sat, but where now her head hangs at the mercy of a seamstress’s thread.

It had been a gruesome death. Slow and screamless. But now, at the end of all things, a Garden of Eden sprawls undetected in her wake.

The spider is first to claim the shattered collarbone. The bone beetles, next, wicked with a taste for sweet skin. Then, the vultures in their royal flock, who sip at the marrow and make their thrones in the pillows of swollen flesh. All humming together in faithful alliance to their great, sleeping goddess.

She’d been a pauper in life but her corpse is an empire. It is small now—barely a beginning.

But her land is rich with fruit. There are many souls in search of home. And death is a generous supplier.

Stay tuned for updates on TO DREAM IN SHADOWS, Danielle’s YA Science Fiction debut!!

Enter Reverie, a city where the sun never rises, the dead never rest, and dreams are a commodity afforded only by the rich…