Where is the Love? On Queen & Slim and Black Girls Deserving Better

Not long ago I described what I wanted in love. Not unlike Queen & Slim both did in the film. Here is what I said…
I want love I just call “Love” because no other name fits.
I want Love to reach for my hand while driving.
I want to lay my head in Love’s lap while Love watches something I don’t even want to see but will watch just to be close to Love.
I want Love to look at me like I’m the last piece of sweet potato pie at Thanksgiving.
Never in my imagining of Love do I want Love to die.
And I don’t want to die for Love.
Or die with Love.
That ain’t a Black girl’s fantasy.
That ain’t a Black girl’s love story.
All too often, that shit is a reality.
The true plot twist is a Black girl getting to live with Love. For Love. In love.
So when folks said Queen & Slim was a love story. I thought for once, love would live.
Instead I got a bootleg Set It Off ending that only confirmed what we already know…
The world hates Black folks, Blackness and Black love.
But I didn’t need to sit through 2 hours of trauma porn to know that.
And I didn’t need Black writers to give me what whiteness so gleefully gives.
I’m not sure where folks saw love.
All I saw was death.
A Black woman assaulted by her Black pimp.
A Black woman killed by her brother.
A Black cop killed by a Black child.
A Black child killed by cops.
2 Black lovers killed by more cops.
Where is the love?
I didn’t see it there.
I saw bonding through trauma.
And that ain’t the same thing.
Love is….
Hands held across the console.
Heads lain on laps.
Sweet potato pie glances in a room full of people.
And like so many other Black girls who are sick of struggle love and trauma love.
Tired of bonding through trauma.
I want a fucking fairytale ending.
After all the trauma.
Through all the struggle.
I deserve that.
Give me love that just rides.
No dying.