Dear Brown Skin Girl,

Brown skin girl, why would you hurt yourself when the entire world already gets that job done?

Brown skin girl, when it comes to love, apart from yourself, you’ll get none.

Don't you know that?

Don't you know you have to be tough, strong, able to carry the household on your head and your siblings on your back?

Brown Girls, they don't cry, they don't bleed, they don't cut, they don’t crack.

The first reason is denial.

Brown girl can’t admit that it is her against survival.

No, that didn't happen not here, not to this brown girl, not to your daughter.

A daily routine of hurting to feel, like drinking water.

When brown girl’s mum first saw the wrists, she asked if it was make up.

Brown girl said, yes.

Yes, I’m learning how to make cuts look real and eventually I'll learn how to make the scars look like they're healing.

What Magic?

What a way out for you.

See, brown skin girls learn ways not to discuss the bad or the truth.

When brown mum was ready, she asked questions like: Why?

Like: Do you not want to live?

Saying, no, would be denial.

But no, brown girl did not want to die.

just did not want to live like this, anymore.

The second reason is fear.

Fear that if you speak it, then it's real.

Well, brown girl was over two years clean and still needed to speak about it to heal.

Brown girl is not bleeding, but has not healed.

Can't you see that?

Brown skin girls don't get depression, they get silenced.

This is no disease.

This is your birth right.

It was not like waking yourself up each day to go on.

It was not like trying to feel something, anything.

It was sadness.

It was losing herself.

Brown skin girl.

Brown wrist girl.

Red wrist girl.

Do not cry anymore.

It is not lovely.

It is not tragic.

It is pain.

It is raw.

This brown girl was broken and raw.

Brown girl cracked.

She cried.

She bled.

She healed.

Like brown skin girls must do.