I am think about the Derek Chauvin trial. I am thinking about how I can’t watch it and I’m struggling to cry anymore because inside I am so tired. I want Black Wins. I want to see us live. I don’t want us to have to be killed three times: the bodies, the names, and the verdicts.

When the Amber Guyger trial happened, it took something out of me. Around the time of the verdict, we were in California. I went on a morning run, a white man took pictures of me, asked me what was I doing on the sidewalk, told me I didn’t belong there. A death happened inside.

I remember that death in my body. I remember how it made me feel. I remember returning home and looking at myself in the mirror and trying to feel human and loved. At this time I was deeply invested in the trial. It consumed me. I wanted so much for Botham and his family.

I remember Amber’s tears and how much I hated them. I hated them with everything inside of me because I knew White Tears often meant Black Losses. I remember the arguments for her innocence. Then the verdict came: guilty. I thought I was going to feel relieved but I wasn’t.

I wasn’t relieved because even though she was found guilty, we had still been robbed. People used words rarely used for us: “that’s too harsh”, “he [Botham] would turn the other cheek”, “I asked for a lighter sentence.” Then the hug and then people praising it and then silence.

It was a terrible thing: people seemed to love us more in our deaths than in our life. I remember and I cannot forget and have not forgot what my body felt when it all happened. It felt the same way when the white man disrespected me and the same way I never wanted to feel again.

So now, years later, when another Black name is tied to a white bullet, I am struggling. I don’t want to watch. I don’t want to feel. I just want us to Win, and Live, and Play, and be Free. I don’t want to feel this way—but I must because I am human and I must feel.

If George and Breonna and Ahmaud and Daunte and Adam and Rayshard and Daniel and Atatiana and Botham and so many more are worth remembering then they’re worth feeling and loving. But I refuse to force myself to be reminded of how committed the system is to Black Losses.

I hope we are all being kind to ourselves and holding one another as we wait for something better. “Let justice roll down,” the Prophet said. I don’t know if we will be there to see the rolling but we are here and we can remember that we are worthy of the deepest love.