Kings, we need you. More than we'd like to admit. We were taught we can do things on our own. We were taught we could do bad all by ourselves. But no one taught us exactly how much your presence should be valued. We say we're the gems, and sometimes degrade you in the process of us uplifting ourselves. That's what we were taught to do. Some of us by our mothers, some by our scorned friends. We're told you all aren't worth the headaches and the stress. We're told you're not worth the late nights and arguments. 

But if they knew love the way I do, they'd know that's the furthest thing from the truth. 

Kings, we need your love. Your unconditional, undying love. We need your smile to make us smile. We need your good days to be our good days and our joy to be yours. We need to share our happy moments and life-changing news. We need arms to jump into when our goals are reached and our purpose identified. We need your passion. We need your patience. 

Kings, we need to be held as our mascara stains your shirt and your fingers that wipe them. We need to be consoled on the bad days that unfortunately followed the good ones. We need your love when the world is against us. When the walls cave in and all we see is darkness we need your light. When our pain is too real to bare on our own we need your strength. We need you when life mercilessly throws us to the ground and cripwalks on our dreams, sanity and hope; when sh-t hits the fan and we want to disappear. 

Kings, we need you to encourage us to pray when prayer is furthest from our minds. We need you to recite scripture when it feels like God isn't listening and The Bible is full of lies. We need you to be our strength when that option is no longer available to us. When our figurative muscles have been stripped to bare bone and our weak bodies can't even carry the shattered heart being housed in our chests. We need you to collect the pieces of our broken frame and put them back together. We need you to rebuild us when we can't rebuild ourselves.

Kings, we need you to assure us it'll all be okay; to show us it'll be okay. We need you to uplift us when uplifting ourselves seems too daunting a task. We need you to straighten our garments and hold us up to keep us from falling again. You're the only ones that can do this. The only ones that can put us on your backs and help us to our final destination. The only ones who can console us when everyone else hates us. When our friends betray us. When life chews us up and spits us out.

Kings, we need you to tell us we're beautiful on what seems to be our ugliest days. When we're bloated and frustrated. When our hair's a mess and our eyebrows are too thin. When we've gained 20 pounds or lost 18. When we compare ourselves to the girls on the magazines and on the Instagram 'Explore' page. We need you to appreciate our one of a kind beauty and help us appreciate it ourselves. We need you to see things in us that we can't seem to identify. We need you to help us see it. We need you to be honest about it.

Kings, we need you to be our backbones, our protectors, our support, our love. We need you to show us the love we deserve, even when sometimes we don't feel we deserve it. We need you to love us when no one else does.

Kings, we need you. To make our babies and to help raise them. No matter what the single mother says, our kids need their fathers. They need male role models, the lessons and the affection only a father can give. They need daddy's love; they need daddy's presence. They need to see parental happiness. They need to see that in a world that justifies exclusion by race, gender and sexual orientation, that two people can be vessels to the lives of each other. They need to see that love is real and fueling it is even realer. They need to see, that despite what we're taught, king and queen need each other.  

If no one's ever told you, we need you, king. And that feeling won't ever diminish. Because I can't do this alone, and there are many other queens who would admit the same. Because your presence is as necessary to the world as ours. Because queens and kings were meant to occupy space together. Because one alone can make magic, but together we could shift galaxies.

This isn't coming from a weak place, but a place of recognition and appreciation for my king counterpart. To acknowledge the irreplaceable role you play in our lives. To highlight the true blessing you are to our being. Perhaps it's also to uplift you all. To inspire you from the many yells you get of "why'd you do that!" and "I don't need you!" The glaring screams of "I can do this alone!" and "you're so useless!" 

In this, I'm speaking for the women whose egos won't allow them to admit that they need you just as much as they need their friends. The women too fearful to relinquish the power of their 'independence' and comfortability of singleness to admit that they need you. The women who can fix their own cars and build their own bookcases. The women who may not yet know how much they need you. The women who are still stuck in the mind frame their family and friends instilled in them, that women don't need men. The women who highlight their own greatness so much that they forget to highlight yours. 

Kings, I need you. We need you.

Love, Queen.