✬ Another B&w Edit ✬ ~ Original Colour Version Found @calmstarchild ✬ Source Space_love.rs (instagram)

Nova Rose Greene

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Angok Mayen , Sijia Kang & Slick Woods by Marcus Ohlsson for Fenty Beauty SS 19

Black and Blessed

Black excellence is not achieved when your standards are less then excellent.

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Michelle Obama meets her deadlines

Serena Williams doesn’t come late to practice. Nor does she come unprepared.

Madam CJ Walker didn’t make her million by letting her dreams stay dreams.

Oprah didn’t wait for things to be handed to her. she created and fulfilled opportunities by her own means.

We are not excellent simply because our skin reflects gold.

We are excellent because we work for it.

Because we are blessed and highly favored.

God doesn’t give to those who don’t work.

God does not give to those who do not work.

Ask and you shall receive , seek and ye shall find, knock and the door will opened unto you.

If you don’t ask you won’t receive

Pray for everything and receive double that.

Seek and you will find.

If you walk around clueless but do not search you can’t find the treasures that are hidden away only for you.

Everyone may be looking for gold but it’s only though God that you will find it.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you.

If the door of opportunity presents its self to you and you do not present yourself to it. You’re going to remain in the same spot outside of a closed door.

The door is not waiting for you to knock.

You have to get up and knock on that door before someone else does.

You have to go find that door, to knock.

You have to ask for the door to even be a door before you can go find it and knock on it.

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To be black and blessed.

To put God first.

To work for your blessings.

To know that your skin color does not define you.

The art of life

My purpose is bigger then my feelings

My art will live longer then me

What I create is important

What I do is important

My existence

My experience

All reflect themselves

In my art

In my words

In my smile

In my walk

My presence

My life reflects through me

Through my pores

Through my finger tips

It has lasting implications

Whatever I leave here

Someone else may one day find

If it’s my kids

My friends

Or a stranger

My something

Will hold value

In another’s hands

Eyes

Ears

Heart

And mind

My life matters

Because it effects others

Your life matters

because it effects others

Life is valuable

Life is not lived alone

You are never truly alone

You are constantly surrounded by the presence of other

In the clothes you wear

To the streets you walk across

You move

You breathe

The same matter

That someone else once did

You stand because someone made it so

You have a path to travel because it was paved for you

The footsteps you leave will guide the next person

The steps you leave will let someone know you were there

We matter

Our futures matter

We are futures

Just as we will be past

A brown skinned girl

I made my Animoji the other day

And I felt satisfied

seeing myself winking a buldgy bubbly wink

But it wasn’t until my friend

This man

Judged me for the way I made her look

“Whaaa? Why the frick does it look like this? Are you trying to be darker?”

I sink in my seat

“You wanna sing brown skin girl so bad. Do you wanna be darker?”

I can’t respond.

“It’s okay, I wanna be darker too.”

But that’s not what I said.

That’s not how I felt.

It took me awhile to embrace the skin that I was in.

In 1st grade I asked my teacher how to spell Carmel, chocolate, and butterscotch

I wanted to know all my delectable choices

I wanted to find the sweet spot that described me just right.

Rich and full of healthy coco goodness.

But as I grew people assumed I was mixed.

Milk + chocolate.

Maybe cookies and cream.

I was definitely called an Oreo, and at the time it made sense.

But I am mixed with my mom and my dad.

Dark Chocolate

And butterscotch.

And rich combination.

I thought I was cute because other people found my skin and curls desirable.

But they didn’t find me desirable just my lightly coated exterior.

One summer I was working hard and someone spotted me from not to far and they said ,

“Briana is that you? Damn you got crispy! I didn’t even recognize you.”

I was hurt.

I got use to the comfort I found in the hungry eyes of others.

But only when i was looked at as a delectable 9/12 months of the year.

In the summer I baked, and it shifted the way I was received.

I moved One summer, and was told that I couldn’t claim the end of the spectrum I thought I belonged on.

“You can’t be light skin. This dude is light skin. Your brown”

I said

it’s summer.

I’m tan.

it’ll fade.

Itll... fade....

My desirability will grow when my tan fades

Don’t worry

I might be a little over done now, but find me on display in the winter, you’ll see I’ll be just right for the picking.

How awful did that self loathing taste.

It took another mans validation for me to embrace my tan.

“Your not crispy, your glowing”

Your right I am

For the first time I got sum burned,

But that nap under the sun was truly worth it,

Because all the light I absorbed in that day,

I exuded over the rest of the summer.

Even though it hurt, I was walking in a skin that felt just right .

I realized that I could also be desirable in all my shades all year round.

But then in a summer of transformation, I started to feel Green.

I danced till my spirit moved,

I leaped, and twirled around the magnetic power that held me together.

Truly I was green until the mirror reminded me otherwise.

Truly I was the air,

Breathing with the sky.

I was so much more then a shade,

I was the light.

I got comfortable with me.

I validated my self , with the pleasure of existences.

The summer I turned green I couldn’t tell you what the rest of the world saw me as, nor did I care.

I WAS FREAKING GREEN!

But I recently stopped dancing.

I recently overfilled myself with things of the world and I’ve lost touch with the colors of my spirit.

So to hear,

“You wanna be brown skin so bad.. “

Felt so uncomfortable.

I have brown skin.

The world will call me black,

And I know that inside I’m green.

But my skin is literally brown.

Regardless what shade my brown takes at this point in time... it’s still brown.

It’s still just skin.

But honestly it just made me want to find myself back to the summer where I discovered I was Greene.

I wanna keep losing myself in the vibrations of the earth.

I wanna know what’s shade I’m in now, tomorrow, and the infinity of beyond.

Is it green?

or have I shifted to a saturated burgandy?

I wonder if I’ve got polka dots hidden under my layers of rich rich red.

There’s only one way to find out.

Time to deep dive out of the pools of others desires of and into the ocean of divinity that’s contained by this ever shifting brown skin.

Don’t let the bitches you get you down

Yvette Gause

Accept.

Love. Accept. Repeat.

“Souls are funny things. They stay constant even when the outside changes, or when the heart makes mistakes. Souls don’t really care about good or bad, right or wrong — they’re just true.”

— Miranda July

garçon de fleur

Mod: Dakota

Shot by Jon Okafo