I struggle with depression and anxiety, and I have since I was a teenager. I spent a good chunk of time being very ashamed of that. Now I feel committed to talking about it and trying to normalize it as much as I can.

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 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.

There's so much about the strong black woman stereotype that makes us forget that we do need and deserve help and care.

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

There's something about us using the word fascism and thinking about, "What is it? What does it mean, and what are the tenets of it?".

I spent a lot of time trying to layer upon layer upon layer as I wrote. I think that's often the fear of a writer, that little nuances won't get picked up.