If I’m honest, part of my renewed curiosity is because recently I found out Whitney Houston fell in love with this other girl, Robyn, when they was teens and working a summer job in New Jersey. I was just looking stuff up online and found some things about her “rumored romance” with her basketball-player best friend, Robyn. I don’t know, but it just seems cool to know that she had this connection with this other girl. And that the other girl was a beautiful basketball star, and Whitney fell for her butt, called her the “sister she never had.” Mmm-hmmm. I feel that. I think I’ve felt that way before. With Ursa, my bestie, I felt that somewhat and in another kind of weird way with Jada, this girl from math.
I read that when Whitney hit it big, Robyn was her for-real, ride or die. That she became Whitney’s assistant and her confidante and always had her back. For real, for real. They shared a huge apartment together that was bad and beautiful and was living that good life together.
When I listen to “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” after reading more about their connection, I imagine Whitney and Robyn slow-dancing in an icy and lit penthouse in the eighties and it’s all back-in-the-day fresh. A world of windows, looking over the city lights and skyscrapers, black and white everything, with leather couches, a big sound system with mad tapes and CDs, glass tables and a neon chandelier. Old-school and tasteful. They are two Black girls, slow-dancing, teen twin flames who loved each other. Inseparable.
I feel it.
Anyway, some people deny it, but when I look at pictures of young Robyn and Whitney and how they are smiling and close, a part of me thinks it’s true. I just do. I can totally see why Whitney loved her. She is cool and smooth, more swag than any of those cheesy, Jheri-curled dudes probably trying to push up on her. I also read that one time, Robyn also maybe whooped Bobby Brown’s butt. I wanna be like that—smooth like Robyn. Just a tender thug who Whitney would love.
Maybe Robyn was her true love. I wish she coulda stayed with her if that’s what she wanted, and they’d be in love forever. Maybe the world would’ve loved her if she was queer. I would’ve, no doubt. Whitney was an angel and what if Robyn could’ve been her bodyguard? Why did that basic-white-boy Kevin Costner, with no swag, have to save her? It should’ve been Robyn’s cool self. Ain’t Black women always saving everything anyway? Why can’t we save Whitney?
When I listen to Whitney sing, I’m feeling every feel there is to feel. Lighthearted. Melancholy. Joyous. Romantic. Her voice can do anything, and I get chills hearing her riff and vocalize. I put my head under my blankets, bring my knees to my chest and cocoon myself with Whitney and the darkness and softness surrounds me.
* * *
• • •
The next song on my list is by my favorite band, BLK LVRS. All of the musicians in the band are weird Black kids. Like me, I guess. I really like the lead singer, QWN Asantewaa. I like them ’cause they is just beautiful and different. They wear simple clothes and a fade haircut and sneakers. Their voice is really soft and deep and emotional, and they write most of the songs and play guitar.
I think if I’m honest, I’m pretty sure I like girls. But I’m not really sure either because a part of me also likes guys, like Terrell. The first time I thought about this in a real way was when I went to see BLK LVRS—my first real, grown concert—and I had this serendipitous, moment-long micro-situationship with this girl.
My mom and dad had surprised me with seeing BLK LVRS for my fifteenth birthday. It was an eighteen-plus show, but apparently the venue allows kids to come with their parents. It made my whole Black life that year, because this was, like, one of the few times they had gotten me something that really felt like me. Not some dumb light-purple frilly blouse or skinny jeans with floral embroidery on the butt or dangly earrings with pink shells or a bougie manicure and pedicure (side note: I did low-key like that ish, though. It actually felt good. Soaking my hands and feet in water and all of this concentrated attention to my fingers and toes made me tingle. I found a dope iridescent-emerald color called Octopussy, which was a weird name, but it made my nails look like the back of a beetle).
So, I’m at the show, I have on my BLK LVRS shirt, black skinny jeans, and a silver chain with Saturn on it that my mom got me for my birthday. My hair was in a braid and I had a big X on my hand to show I wasn’t drinking, which I thought was cool anyway. My parents was back in the cut, where some of their friends was chillin’ and they got appetizers and drinks and was just being bougie adults in the way my mom loves and my dad is awkward about. My mom says it’s good for him to talk to beings besides his plants and his seeds (seeds—as in his children, Sahir and me, but also his actual seeds for Black Eden, the seeds he collects and germinates, and the seeds he raps to once they’re in the dirt. The Fugees, mainly). Mom says if she ever dies, he going to need some friends, maybe even a new wifey. He hates when she be talking so reckless about things like her dying. I think maybe ’cause his parents died when he was young, and the idea makes him feel scared, like a world without my mom would feel.
The energy of the show was very intense for me. All I could do was take in all of the fly people, their different looks and colors. They were beautiful. I had never experienced that ever before. My parents let me wander into the ocean of audience and be free of them, as long as I stayed close to the stage or their bougie district and kept my phone handy. I walked around and tried to be low-key and blend in, but in that space, part of me wished I had let myself let loose and pick an edgier outfit.
I said “excuse me” about ninety-nine-eleven times, and twisted my body through the crowd until I was standing real close to the front, right on the edge of the stage. I wanted to see QWN as close as I could. The wait seemed forever to come out, but there was a DJ playing some bops to keep the crowd ready. When the band got to the stage I was only a couple feet away from QWN.
They was smaller than I thought they would be, but they was also more everything else. More beautiful and dope, and I couldn’t stop looking at them. The whole audience seemed to love and want QWN. I mean, my whole body was vibrating. They was all in the zone. QWN didn’t seem to notice us at all, except for between songs when they would talk and tell little stories in they deep speaking voice, otherwise, they would let their guitar talk and harmonize their singing alongside it. Their voice made me feel like they cared about me. I know that’s weird, but that is the only way I can explain the way it feels when I listen to them.
I memorize your skin
and you tattoo your love
and your poetry on me
You love like rain
You beautiful sweet
You saturate me
my ancestral wifey
give me touches that
sweeten up
complexities
with all of the tenderness