I want [my daughter] to look at the world through the underside of a glass-bottom boat, to look through a microscope at the galaxies that exist on the pinpoint of a human mind.

No matter your wreckage. There will be someone to find you beautiful, despite the cruddy metal. Your ruin is not to be hidden behind paint and canvas. Let them see the cracks. Someone will come to sing into these empty spaces.

Ever hear that expression, "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times"? That's what high school was like for me. Both of those - all the time.

The first spoken word poem I ever wrote was when I was 14 and I wrote it because I was accidentally signed up for a teen poetry slam. Because I loved poetry I said that I'd try it out.

Things that I have a hard time being able to fully grasp, sometimes writing the poem helps me work through it. Or I get to the end of the poem and I still haven't figured anything out, but at least I have a new poem out of it.

I do like celebrating women, I do like celebrating different lifestyles and choices and people and it makes me happy when others find my work empowering.

I think there is a human instinct to tell stories, no matter who you are or where you live.