To That Black Man Poem by Gero Lorna

We love you even though sometimes
you don’t deserve it.
We are your friends, your sisters, your girlfriends,
your wives.
You lack what we as black women need
the most, respect.
We are struggling ourselves everyday
as we try to overcome the abuse
we have suffered, the love we have lost
and the “thank you’s” we have seldom heard.
You, black male should be our shelters
from the storms of discrimination, our
shields in the battle of abuse and not the
water in the wells in which we feel
we are drowning.