Where Is Our Love Without Pain?
I was sitting with myself the other day, just thinking, and this one thought hit me hard: I’ve never seen a movie where a Black woman and a Black man are both the leads, and it’s a full-on, real, successful love story without pain. Without some form of deep-rooted struggle. Without somebody having to be broken before they’re loved.
And I mean that. I’ve seen powerful films. Beautiful ones. If Beale Street Could Talk? Stunning. But he was in jail for something he didn’t even do. A love story, yes, but one still surrounded by injustice and trauma. Diary of a Mad Black Woman? Iconic. But sis had to be dragged, humiliated, and emotionally abused before she finally got her peace. It’s always: Black woman suffers, and then comes the healing, then comes the love, then she’s allowed softness.
Why do we have to bleed first?
Where are our stories that begin with wholeness and stay there? Where love doesn’t come after the heartbreak but alongside our joy? Where two Black people simply meet, connect, fall for each other, and build without chaos trailing them?
I’m so tired of the “strong Black woman” narrative being romanticized through pain. Why do we only get softness after we’ve endured? Why do we have to earn gentle love through surviving hell?
Where’s our Notebook? Where’s our Before Sunrise? Where’s our cinematic love that’s sweet, ordinary, deep, but not traumatizing?
We deserve to see ourselves just being in love. Unapologetically. Safely. Passionately. We deserve to be portrayed as soft from the start, not molded into softness by trauma. Because the truth is, not all of us are trying to be strong all the time. Some of us are craving softness. Some of us are tired of being resilient. Some of us just want to be loved without having to go through a war first.
And maybe I’m writing this because I’ve been thinking about my brand. What I want it to mean. What I want it to stand for. And it hit me: I don’t want it rooted in pain. I don’t want it to be about constantly overcoming, surviving, pushing through. Yes, those are parts of the story, but they’re not all of it.
I want my brand to breathe healing. I want it to speak to the parts of us that are ready to rest, to grow, to receive, to love, to be loved. I want Black women to know they can be everything else and then some. That we can live lives not defined by trauma. That we can have soft mornings, laughter-filled afternoons, wine nights with our person who sees us, honors us, chooses us, without having to get through anything to have that.
I want our daughters to grow up knowing that love doesn’t have to hurt first. That love is not supposed to break you before it builds you. That you don’t have to suffer to be worthy of gentleness. That they don’t have to perform strength to be considered lovable.
And if Hollywood can’t give that to us, maybe I’ll write it myself. A story where Black love is just love. A story where two Black people meet, fall deeply, unapologetically in love, and that’s it. No cheating. No abuse. No jail. No lies. No generational trauma being passed back and forth. Just honesty. Just connection. Just joy. Just love.
I’m not talking about something written in the 90s or early 2000s either. I mean now. This generation. This time. In this world we’re living in, where is the love that doesn’t hurt? If a movie like that exists, please point me to it. Because right now, I don’t see it. And I think it’s about time we write it ourselves..
— Becoming Herrss | Kayla Maryam ✨ 🌼