There Are No Honest Poems About Dead

If I Didn't Define Myself For Myself, I Would Be Crunched Into Other People's Fantasies For Me And Eaten Alive.

I Soon Discovered That If You Keep Your Mouth Shut, People Are Apt To Believe You Know Everything, And They Begin To Feel Freer And Freer To Tell You Anything, Anxious To Show That They Know Something, Too.

Raising Black Children — Female And Male — In The Mouth Of A Racist, Sexist, Suicidal Dragon Is Perilous And Chancy. If They Cannot Love And Resist At The Same Time, They Will Probably Not Survive. And In Order To Survive They Must Let Go. This Is What Mothers Teach — Love, Survival — That Is, Self-definition And Letting Go.

Well, I Do Not Want To Be Tolerated, Nor Misnamed. I Want To Be Recognized.

There Is A Timbre Of Voice That Comes From Not Being Heard And Knowing / You Are Not Being Heard / Noticed Only By Others / Not Heard For The Same Reason.