In my experience when I do try to avoid something, it makes its way into the work anyway. To be in front of it and just make friends with it is easier for me.

I think that fear came from, "Okay, I'm going to have Beyoncé in the title, and people are just going to think, it's Beyoncé poems. It's light and fun." I was kind of super-conscious of that. It's kind of like this weird trick I'm playing, where you're like, "What an interesting, fun cover, and then the name Beyoncé." Then you open it, and it's just about my depression. All of it belongs together.

I think that we need to make it our goal to define freedom for ourselves.

Where I would usually backspace, I stop and say, "You know what? This is important, that I say how I feel and don't sugarcoat it, and don't avoid it."

I don't claim to say, "All black women are like me," because they're not.

My friends and I have all been super motivated to work and to do the work that we need to and want to and think should be in the world.

So much of the world and the systems that we live within are made to keep us from feeling like we're free. The way that black women in American came to be is just diametrically opposed to being free.