I also found it funny to think about blackness as the second person. That was just sort of funny. Not the first person, but the second person, the other person.

People expect black women to be angry, irrationally so, without reason. They think we are animals and we go around like the Wild Things.

The past is a life sentence, a blunt instrument aimed at tomorrow.

Poetry is probably the last gift economy. Part of the negotiation is to understand that you're going to do something you really want to do, so you're going to take whatever life comes with that.

You become a role model because of what you do as a person. There's a certain point where being a role model might come from standing up for yourself and getting rid of emotion that doesn't belong to you, emotion that is being brought on because of racist actions of others.

I don't think people want to look at problems. They want a continuous narrative, an optimistic narrative. A narrative that says there's a present and a future - and what was in the past no longer exists.

The truce is that. You forgive all of these moments because you're constantly waiting for the moment when you will be seen. As an equal. As just another person. As another first person. There's a letting go that comes with it.