I truly don’t believe we can align with our forever lovers, our soulmates, or our true life partners without first doing the work of healing. Someone once told me that a good relationship could heal you, but I think that’s false. A relationship can support your healing, it can offer safety and comfort, but it cannot be the cure. Healing is an inside job. You must first become whole. You must love yourself, know yourself, and pour into yourself before you can genuinely give yo

I wrote recently about Soft Wanting about allowing desire without gripping it, without turning it into a project or a prophecy. This feels like the next chapter. I’m experiencing someone now in a way that feels gentle and intentional. There’s attraction. There’s curiosity. There’s chemistry that doesn’t feel like it’s trying to outrun itself. And what’s surprising me most is how regulated it feels. I’m not collapsing into fantasy, even when I’m daydreaming. I’m not abandonin

I’ve been thinking about the woman I’ve become and how intentional she is. I didn’t wake up confident. I earned it. Confidence came from surviving moments that tried to reduce me. From realizing that no one was coming to save me, soften the blow, or explain my worth on my behalf. I learned to speak plainly because being misunderstood was more painful than being disliked. I learned audacity because silence never protected me. I stopped asking for permission when I realized I w

I’ve been thinking a lot about the current state of America. About the Trump administration. About what ICE agents are doing to families in Minnesota. About the segregation that still exists in Detroit. About what’s happening in rural communities, especially in the South. About food deserts. And people still say America is the land of the free, home of the brave. Where is the freedom? Freedom does not look like being ripped from your family. Freedom does not look like working

Lately, I’ve been noticing a quiet shift in how I experience desire. Not the loud, consuming kind. Not the kind that rushes me into meaning or makes me grip tightly at potential. But something slower. Warmer. More intentional. I’m learning not to rush affection. I’m learning to enjoy connection without needing to define it immediately. I’m learning that I don’t have to cling to things—or people—to feel secure. There’s someone in my life right now who has been teaching me pati

Every time I come back home, I’m reminded why I left. Not because I don’t love my family. I do. Deeply. But because loving people does not mean I can live inside the conditions they’ve learned to tolerate. This visit stirred up an anger I didn’t expect, or maybe one I’ve been avoiding. It wasn’t explosive. It was quiet, simmering, lodged in my chest. The kind of anger that asks, How do y’all live like this? and then immediately checks itself for sounding ungrateful. But I’m

I’ve been thinking a lot about ritual lately and not in a performative way, not as aesthetics, but as a way of returning to myself and returning home. After revisiting the ritual chapter in The Spirit of Intimacy by Sobonfu Somé, something inside me softened and opened. Her words reminded me that ritual is simple. It is personal. It is honest. Ritual is intention. Ritual is sincerity. Ritual is openness. It begins with knowing that everything we need already lives within us.

There are parts of me that I am still learning to look at without flinching. Parts that aren’t soft or holy or enlightened. Parts that crave, ache, cling, or enjoy things I wish I didn’t like. Parts that came from survival, not intention. I don’t judge them anymore. I just want to understand them. There was a time in my life when intensity felt like love. When someone checking for me, showing up unannounced, being territorial or possessive felt like passion instead of control

Lately, I’ve been feeling triggered in ways that caught me off guard. A familiar ache rose in my chest when I noticed old connections resurfacing. These were people who saw me at my lowest, people who disappeared when I needed gentleness, people whose judgment still lingers in the corners of my memory. It hit me. They witnessed a version of me that wasn’t my truth. They saw me in survival mode: overwhelmed, grieving, unraveling. They mistook that moment for who I was. And tha

This trip didn’t go how I expected but maybe it went how it needed to. I thought I was coming here for connection, girlhood, laughter, shared memory. Instead, I ended up spending most of it with myself. And honestly… I think that was the real assignment. I learned how to choose me without guilt. How to move at my own pace, even if I’m the only one moving. How to communicate without yelling, without shrinking, without overexplaining. I realized I can say this isn’t working for

There comes a point in your healing where you realize the past is not a place to return to, it’s a place you outgrew. Sometimes people reappear not because they belong in your life, but because they want to see if the door is still open. Sometimes curiosity brings you back to a familiar page, but that doesn’t mean you’re meant to reread the story. Recently, I had a moment of clarity: your exes are your exes for a reason. Not because they were all bad people. Not because the e

(for healing, attraction, renewal, and reclamation) There comes a moment when the heart grows tired of waiting for someone else to see its light. So you turn inward. You gather the pieces of yourself scattered in other people’s hands. You remember that you are the altar, the offering, and the answered prayer. This spell is for that moment, when you’re ready to release what hurt, reclaim your softness, and return your power to its rightful place: with you. I lost the most imp

(There’s a version of self-love that isn’t loud or performative — it’s quiet, grounded, and honest. It doesn’t always glow; sometimes it sits in silence, sometimes it sheds, sometimes it simply breathes. This reflection is about that kind of love — the one that grows from tending, trusting, and returning to yourself, over and over again). Self-love, for me, has become less about the grand gestures and more about the rhythm of my days. It’s the quiet rituals that bring me home

Before the ceremony, I told my therapist that I felt it was time to release Michael. He agreed. He said keeping him in orbit, even from a distance, isn’t good for either of us. It delays the work we both need to do. And I knew he was right. Allowing small pieces of connection to linger kept me tied to an old version of love. It felt tender, but it wasn’t healing. So tonight, I honored that truth. I blocked Michael, then I lit two candles -- pink for me, purple for him (I mea

Dear My People,   The system is broken. I know this from lived experience, from study, from what the world already sees.   It failed my father. It failed my mother. It failed me, it failed you, it failed Black and Brown bodies everywhere.   They patch us with scraps, Band-Aids just enough to keep us moving— and then they act surprised that we are still in survival mode.   But survival is not living. “I’m alive” is not enough. Joy is our birthright. Abundance is holy. God is l

Dear Ma,   I wish you had shared more of your truth, more of your pain than your anger. I wish you had truly let me in— so, I could understand you as a girl, as a woman, as a human.   I’m sorry for the things I may have done that triggered you without knowing. I didn’t understand how deeply you suffered until you were gone.   I always knew your value. I saw you as omnipotent. Before you left, I told you; you were my Earth angel. I meant it.   There is something about a mother

Boston feels brilliant but not always soulful. It’s a city that knows how to think but rarely how to feel. Walking its streets, I could sense how intellect is currency—how tone, posture, and conversation are all designed to affirm a certain kind of whiteness. It’s beautiful, yes, but also cold. Thoughtful but not tender. I came here expecting inspiration, not initiation. But Boston became both. I’ve learned that intellect without soul isn’t wisdom. Some people can talk about

This piece is both research and revelation. It explores how we, as Black women and seekers, can reclaim our ways of knowing from colonial frameworks and return to the sacred wisdom of the body, spirit, and community.   It’s a call to remember that decolonization begins within—through alignment, truth-telling, and healing. , and healing.   Zariah N. Perkins   Abstract This article introduces an emerging epistemological framework—Endarkened Africana Womanist Epistemology—that d

Mixing his Nigerian village upbringing with his first American experience at Tufts and living in Boston created a man who could never fully understand or appreciate my soul, because he has no access to his own. He was raised on resilience, not rest. Conditioned to achieve, not to feel. A man I deeply loved became the embodiment of this. His archetype is the kind that lives entirely in the mind because the soul never had space to breathe. He moves through life with an intellec

I’ve been reading my old journals lately. The pages smell like another lifetime — inked in longing, grief, and hope I didn’t yet know how to hold. The girl in my old journals loved hard, even when it hurt. She mistook intensity for intimacy and silence for rejection. She wrote about people who made her feel small, then apologized for wanting more. She said she loved herself, but I can tell she didn’t like herself. She admitted it. Her handwriting curls around insecurities she