“Her body is a undiscovered country and she is afraid that someone will colonize it and expect her to thank them for the wreckage.”

I poured myself from an empty cup but you weren’t even thirsty.

Brown girls are not band aids for your pain.

I am just a bunch of bad decisions glued together.

You look most like your father when you smile. It’s your ultimate betrayal.

You are a multiple choice exam and I have circled all the wrong answers.

Heaven is not something you need to die to get to.

Black don’t crack: It does bruise, though. It does rupture into a new sky.

I wish I was as good at love as I am at falling apart.

I am always becoming a new tragedy. Trading one torture for another. Forever versatile in this becoming.

Shame is what happens when you learn self love through people who are difficult to forgive.

Sometimes I open my mouth and my mother comes out.

Its okay if all you did this year was survive.

Self Love is just me loving you in reverse.

The last person I adored made me cry and then tenderly wiped the tears off my face. It was the only lesson that taught me; you can love someone and still do horrible, cruel things to them.

We romanticize trauma so much that we have stopped trying to prevent it and started smiling at all the scars it leaves.

Healing can look a lot like violence.

I’ve been afraid to look at the woman in the mirror. Everyday she looks less and less like me. It makes me wonder if I’ll ever find my way back home.

I hide behind olive branches. So afraid of others knowing what lay beneath the broken rifle. The reality hitting the pavement like bullets that stem from war.

The Republicans galvanize their base by inciting a lot of fear; they operate on a lot of mythmaking. So we have to have something compelling. We shouldn’t be afraid to be bold.

All those questions that I was too afraid to ask? In the end I lay down cold welcoming the answers to tear me in half.

I didn’t start singing until I was 16. I was afraid to sing in front of people.

I am afraid of many things, but what scares me the most is being unforgettable.

Do not be afraid, for he has already conquered tomorrow.

Dear God, I am so afraid to open my clenched fists! Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to? Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands? Please help me to gradually open my hands and to discover that I am not what I own, but what you want to give me.