Love is Worth It
Poet Karen (Kae) Wangare Leonard explores home, family, and self-love
always just kind of been walking the line, and moving in what feels like more liminal spaces in search of belonging.” But that line is a tricky one to walk. Leonard loves her parents, she said, but at the same time, they were part of a religious community where she never felt welcome due to her sexuality. She felt a need to protect them when she was out in high school, in an attempt to avoid their facing any backlash for her identity. She loved living in Kenya again, but it was also a place where her existence is criminalized. She’s written about her relationship with the place that she calls home, wanting Kenya to accept her as she is: my other queer African friends didn’t get,” she said.
In recent years, since moving back to the U.S., Leonard has mostly been working on her writing and her relationship with herself and others. She has moved around quite a bit since her return, from Oregon to Virginia to D.C. — she’s hoping to go abroad for her degree soon — and has done a lot of profound writing. Leonard’s poetry explores her relationships with both Kenya and the U.S., processes her own struggles with mental illness, and creates a platform to advocate for the value of Black lives. In short, through her writing Leonard is able to show the world who she is.
In 2020, Leonard published her first poetry collection, “Lightning On My Fingertips.” In the book, she explores the meaning of “home,” discovering who she is, and the trauma that comes with being a transnational, transracial adoptee.
“In the past few years I’ve started to tap into the trauma of what adoption was,” Leonard said. This process of unpacking trauma is something many adopted individuals go through. Studies have shown that adopted children are almost twice as likely to be diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and behavioral issues than children raised by their biological families.
Struggling with her mental health is something Leonard has been very open about in her work. Leonard describes her daily routine of living with depression and OCD to be “one of the bravest things” that she does. She’s also struggled with a disability, caused by an accidentally selfinflicted wound that occurred during a mental health crisis.
Yet through all of this, Leonard has been passionately pursuing self-discovery and radically loving and accepting herself. Leonard has based some of this on her belief that all humans are deserving of some level of care, if not love. “If I can use my words and my story laid out to structure a more accurate picture that honors my own humanity, then I can’t count myself out of the thought that humans are deserving of love. So then when love comes, and people are giving me offerings of care and embrace, then I can’t truthfully say I don’t deserve it.”
And while the idea of finding romantic love in the future can be scary, because hurt occurs in tandem with it, Leonard wants to stay open to the idea that “love is worth it.”
A special thanks to Karen (Kae) Wangare Leonard for allowing us to use her work in this article. To read more of Leonard’s collection, visit her website at karenwangareleonard.com.