There [Haiti] were also leaders like Jean-Jacques Dessalines, whose motto was, "Cut their heads off, burn their houses."

People who want alternative information have to try so hard to find it.

People think that there is a country there that these people are only around when they are on CNN. I don't think that's limited to Haiti.

When you write, it’s like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring them unity. Your fingers have still not perfected the task. Some of the braids are long, others are short. Some are thick, others are thin. Some are heavy. Others are light. Like the diverse women of your family. Those whose fables and metaphors, whose similes and soliloquies, whose diction and je ne sais quoi daily slip into your survival soup, by way of their fingers.

I was neither doing these people nor myself a favor by showing up when my heart wasn't in it. There were not getting the real me, the whole me, the true me.

Here, though, there is nothing. Nothing at all. The sky seems empty even when I am looking at the moon and stars.

Or even the state of Florida, where they are prepared to execute children. Umm, well, you hope that at least that there is something there to be claimed.