1. To be (decidedly) incapable of fulfilling one’s purpose. For instance, “I am too weak to wear the mask today, but my elders will roll their eyes, so I will don it anyway.” To be unable to perform to the best of one’s ability, which garners the same reaction as a child who is too willful to clean their room. A moment wherein bodily unresponsiveness challenges the spirit, which is well-trained and eager, to do that which is unthinkable and lay down thy cross: a cross which is borne with labored breaths, not dying ones.
2. To use tears as blues and reds that paint a sky that sobs and bleeds and is not always idle and clear. To keep this painting hidden away when told that the fruits of labor must be harvested and sold and not kept locked within the heart.
3. To think that any work is ever simply as it is and not an homage to broken chains.
4. A man, woman, person, or child who cannot stand at protest for the sake of well-being, but perhaps not for lack of apparent health. A human being who has felt the joys, sorrows, and madness of living — in this case, as “of color” — and must take, at most, some days to live as color blind.
○ Weakness: To sit down and think and cry about the screams which will (by effort and not by choice) never pass lips.
5. Note: One may be labeled with the term “weak,” but never should this insult be stood for. “To be” is not worthy of degradation.
[An homage to Alice Walker’s “Definition of a ‘Womanist.’”]
Emmanuela Eneh is an English major and member of the BA/MA program. Although she has been obsessed with fiction writing ever since watching “Avatar: The Last Airbender” as a child, she began delving into poetry and nonfiction during her junior and senior years. She has found these mediums to be incredibly therapeutic methods of telling the story of what makes her up as an individual. She enjoys tabletop role-playing games, reading fanfiction, and playing video games.