Editor’s note: This editorial from award-winning writer and pornographic performer King Noire originally ran on Playboy.com in July 2020.

In an era when our screens are filled with constant imagery of Black suffering and black death, it serves to be reminded of the beauty and tenderness that are intrinsic to our existence. We contain multitudes. We are capable of much more than just “surviving.” We are capable of ebullient joy, intense pleasure and undeniable beauty.

When I reached out to the incomparable King Noire—who himself embodies the idea of multitudes in his work as an adult performer, a rapper, a community activist, a lover and a father—to respond to this moment, he returned with a powerful piece. It is a salve during turbulent times. With his words, King Noire demonstrates that Black Americans exist beyond our pain.

“People need to read that our love is special,” King tells me over the phone. His composition is a vivid meditation on Black love that is steeped in history and legacy.

SAGE

by King Noire

Every night I sage her from head to toe.

It has become our ritual in these times.

The world around us succumbing to its sins and we stand on the front lines.

Our scars map the journey like constellations. A mutual understanding.

Hunted by police, scorned by politicians and lamented by pundits…

Our love is treated as an enemy of the state.

“Somebody kicked in the door and shot my girlfriend”

Breonna Taylor woke up to 8 shots in her bed.

Lovers left behind mourning for another chance to hold on to hope.

Ancestors jumped brooms and got married in secret without keeping master’s last name.

“Until distance do you part”…

Too much adoration would get us sold away to another plantation.

Ripped away from children and kinfolk.

Forced to hide love so that they would not call the wrath of the master’s jealousy.

Those bodies that he coveted as property for torture and rape had visions beyond his plantation.

That big house still stands in Suffolk haunted by its mistress’s brutality.

The slave quarters with that collared green patch planted by the door and the smell of cornbread has long since been torn down.

Unmarked graves beneath the city, this country was built on our pain.

The wind blowing through tobacco, sugar and cotton fields tells love stories in a 12-bar blues.

Tied to an oak tree, side by side next to the Moore’s Ford Bridge.

After 5 years serving in the Pacific theater of World War II George Dorsey came home to his wife Mae and that longing for one another lead to a passionate conception.

Sharecroppers with bigger plans, but the GI Bill was not colorblind.

Called nigger when he returned to the states in his military uniform, freedom was a foreign idea.

The Dorseys were lynched as a family.

Husband, Wife and Child.

One of those white men cut Mae Dorsey open to remove the unborn seed from her uterus.

Those lynch mobs collected fetuses, fingers and ears.

Photographed for postcards with their children posing next to corpses burned beyond recognition.

Genitalia severed and saved in jars to be lusted over as souvenirs.

Covet our bodies and fear of our soul.

Wearing crucifixes as symbols, but what side of the burning cross were your forefathers on?

Jim Crow snatched lovers from a warm embrace.

COINTELPRO made sure our intimacy was no longer private.

The war on Black America is the government’s longest-running campaign.

I Can’t Breathe

Hands Up Don’t Shoot…

Police fire 50 shots killing Sean Bell on his wedding day and changing the reason for wearing a suit.

Widowed with no wedding “Until distance do you part…”

Our love sprints towards the drinking gourde.

Inspired by revolutionary romance novels, we dream of Sundiata Acoli reuniting with Assata.

Every night I sage her from head to toe.

We honor our Orishas and every soul that has suffered just to love.

They tell us Black Love is an endangered species…

Fuck you talking about?!

Love kept us alive.

There are those who don’t want love for us, so we love harder.

Fuck harder.

In those moments of respite, our pain transforms into pleasure, and our fantasies of freedom become one with our moments of truth.

When in bondage all love languages translate to liberty.