Sage & Roots series:

Sage & Roots

Part 1:

The Heat That Raised Us

Sage used to say she was shaped by survival more than softness.

Caramel-skinned with watchful eyes and a sharp tongue that cut before anyone else could, she learned early that the world did not automatically make space for girls like her. So she made her own. Raised in Harlem, Sage grew up in a neighborhood that hummed with culture, rhythm, and resilience—but inside her home, survival was louder than love.

Fighting came naturally to her. Not because she wanted to be hard, but because she had to be. Emotional battles. Verbal battles. Sometimes physical ones. Defense became instinct long before she understood what she was defending herself from.

At the center of everything stood her mother, Tami.

Tami was the kind of woman who filled a room without trying. Controlling. Critical. Sharp around the edges. She believed she was raising her daughter the only way she knew how—with toughness. But what Sage felt was domination. Correction without comfort. Instruction without understanding. Love that felt conditional.

By middle school, Sage had already mastered silence. By high school, she had perfected the art of pretending she didn’t need anyone.

When she felt hurt, she swallowed it.

When she felt confused, she buried it.

When she needed guidance, she figured it out alone.

What once protected her slowly hardened her.

The uncried tears became anger.

The ignored wounds became defensiveness.

The silence turned explosive.

Sage grew into a woman who loved deeply but trusted slowly. A woman who anticipated betrayal before it arrived. In relationships, she braced for impact even during moments of peace. And because trauma feels familiar, she found herself choosing people who felt like home—even when “home” had always been chaotic.

Toxic lovers.

One-sided friendships.

Attachments that drained more than they poured.

At her core, Sage was genuine. Big-hearted. Loyal to a fault. But even the kindest souls grow tired when they are constantly unappreciated. Sage didn’t stop loving—she just started guarding it.

Everything shifted the day she met May.

May wasn’t loud. She wasn’t chaotic. She didn’t demand space—she offered it. Where Sage braced for conflict, May offered calm. Where Sage expected criticism, May offered curiosity. Their connection was immediate. Intense. Emotional in a way that felt both terrifying and safe.

For the first time, Sage experienced love that didn’t feel like a battlefield.

But trauma doesn’t disappear just because love arrives.

Sage’s unresolved pain followed her into that relationship. When conflict came—as it always does—she reacted from survival instead of security. Pride spoke louder than vulnerability. Fear disguised itself as strength. And eventually, she let her emotions win.

They separated.

Four years passed.

Four years of growth. Of regret. Of learning what it means to sit with your own reflection.

When they reconnected in 2024, the love hadn’t died. It had matured. Deepened. Complicated itself. They were no longer the same women who had first met—they were scarred, wiser, and more aware of what they stood to lose.

But love doesn’t grow in isolation.

As Sage and May rebuilt their bond, resistance rose around them. Tami’s criticism sharpened. Advice came coated in disapproval. Sage’s identity, her sexuality, her future—everything was questioned. Her brother’s silence felt just as loud.

The message was clear: this isn’t what we wanted for you.

For the first time, Sage faced a choice.

Continue surviving.

Or start living.

Because healing meant confronting what she had spent years outrunning. It meant questioning her mother without hating her. It meant acknowledging pain without becoming it. It meant unlearning the idea that love had to hurt to be real.

And healing also meant something harder than fighting:

Staying soft.

But before Sage could choose herself, her story began long before she was born.

She remembers the heat before anything else.

Harlem glowed that summer afternoon—the kind of heat that pressed against skin and slowed time. Ninety degrees on paper, but it felt heavier. The air shimmered. Ice cream trucks lined the curb. Children’s laughter tangled with birdsong.

That was the day her mother stepped into her own beginning.

Tami held six-year-old Andre’s hand as they climbed the steps to a modest second-floor apartment. It wasn’t grand. But it was theirs. Sage could almost feel the quiet pride radiating from her mother—the kind of joy you hold gently because you’re afraid speaking it too loudly might make it disappear.

Tami hadn’t grown up with space.

She was raised in a crowded home with five siblings and one overworked parent. Among them was Dash, her twin—the one who understood her without words. But understanding didn’t soften the rules.

Children were seen, not heard.

So Tami endured. She swallowed confusion. She carried anger she didn’t know how to name. No one taught her how to say, I’m hurting. No one modeled softness. Survival came first.

That silence shaped her.

And one day, it would shape Sage too.

Grandma’s house, though—that was different.

That house smelled like seasoning and safety. Like baked cookies and loud laughter. Sage remembered sitting at the kitchen table while her grandmother stirred pots with practiced hands.

“A little spice here,” Grandma would murmur. “A little there.”

She would hand Sage the wooden spoon.

“Tell me if it needs anything.”

Sage would taste, eyes widening. “It’s perfect.”

Grandma taught flavor. Balance. Patience. Lessons about womanhood hidden between recipes. Aunt Annie baked cookies, sliding the chocolate bowl toward Sage with a knowing smile. Her mother lingered in the living room, distant, present but not fully there.

Even as a child, Sage noticed.

“Tami, what’s been going on?” Grandma once asked, stirring vegetables in a steaming pot.

“Nothing, Ma,” Tami snapped.

Sage knew it wasn’t nothing.

But children were seen, not heard.

And so she watched. She absorbed. She learned to read tension like temperature.

Years later, as an adult, Sage would encounter other forms of tension.

There were neighbors who made her feel watched. Whispers in hallways. Energy that felt heavy and invasive. Rumors that spread too easily. Attempts to intimidate, to provoke, to disturb her peace.

It felt coordinated at times—like being studied under a microscope she never agreed to step beneath.

But Sage was no longer the silent child in the kitchen.

She had endured too much to be erased.

Where others tried to project darkness, she held onto something brighter—faith. Not naïve optimism, but a grounded belief that no matter how intense the hostility around her felt, it could not overpower the light within her.

Because Sage had survived louder storms than whispers.

This is the story of a woman learning that survival is not the same as living.

Of a daughter untangling generational silence.

Of a lover relearning how to stay.

Of a woman choosing herself, even when the people closest to her refuse to understand.

This is Sage & Roots.

And the journey has only just begun. 🦋

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