Hard times are really a fire under your ass to prioritize and think, "Okay, how can I challenge myself to put something in the world that wasn't there that can reach other folks and help them to process?"

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.

The book [There are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé?] is quite complex, and I was worried that it would be marketed as one-sided or flat, and I knew that Mickalene's [Tomas] work would be able to encompass all the many states of being that are in the book.

So much of my writing process is trying to eliminate any kind of shame or fear of the thoughts that I'm having.

I try to convey what it feels like and sounds like and smells like and looks like inside of my particular skin, to move through the world as a black American woman in her mid-twenties.

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.

Sometimes I feel as though I'm trying to take a hit for the team so that other people then can move forward. I'm like, "Look, I just laid out all of my stuff, so what's the worst that can happen?".