It’s Black Girl Magic Until…

It’s Black Girl Magic Until …

She isn’t slim-thick with curly hair and freckles, or dark skinned and skinny, with an overexposed highlighter, captured by a 50mm DSLR and filtered 23 times.

She’s sitting on the bus, no make up on, no real friends, crouched down attempting to hide her stomach rolls as she watches the cool kids glisten from the corner of her eyes.

Her aesthetic isn’t flowers in her hair or bold colours of paint, painted across her ebony skin. It’s empty pizza boxes and period pain tablets and clothes that don’t fit her, scattered across the floor. It’s watching series in the dark while zoning out as she thinks about the boys that never chose her.

She isn’t beautiful, or interesting, or funny, or incredibly smart. She isn’t quiet in that quirky attractive, mysterious way. She’s quiet and boring and truly just average, trying to make sense of the world without ever being noticed. Nobody notices, and nobody ever will.

She scrolls down her Twitter and sees #BlackGirlMagic is trending. She is excited that Black Girls are finally being celebrated. She’s frantically scrolling and the excitement quickly turns to cold disappointment as she realizes that non of these Black girls magic resembles hers.

She’s normal, she has crust on her eyes and dry drool on the corner of her mouth. She has panic attacks in clothing store fitting rooms. She lives somewhere nobody remembers, her passions are things nobody cares about. She’s bored and lonely, and hates the beach.

She’s Black. She’s a Girl.

She doesn’t feel magical.

Not today, at least.