How good do you have to be to just… be loved?
Isn’t being alive enough?

Or does it have to come with a price?
The whole world is expensive—why does love have to be too?

It’s frustrating.
Girl, I know.
But let me tell you something: adoptive parents need to grow up.
And it is not your job to always teach them.

You’re living life without precedent.
They’ve had experience.

What they don’t say out loud are the expectations they place on you—
despite saying,
“You are welcome.”
“This is home for you.”
“You belong here.”

Rejection is an emotion based on experiences, right?
So I find it interesting, dear adopted Black girl,
that you keep blaming yourself for how you see the world—
when how we see the world is just a reflection of what we’ve lived.

It’s in the data.
And until those with the signing power take action on that data—
we don’t need more think pieces to feel fulfilled. We got each other for that.

Think pieces and stories are not synonymous.

An experience is a story.
A breakthrough is a story.
Living—everyday living—can be a story.

The adoption system?
That’s a data point. Rigged too- people work really hard to keep what is broken.

But your reason for existing?
It is not for data collection.

so I want you to let this sink in and then ask yourself –
how does it feel to be real?
To be seen beyond the chart?
To be loved without needing to prove a thing?

from a corner in the coffee shop with love,

Teisha