A body so poetic, every curve is a verse.

I love… I love black women.” My first reaction was to laugh and then smile. “You see I love that when you smile. I love your lips and your cheekbones. I love the fullness and that everlasting youth. I love the colour and how it comes in so many shades but none grey. The spectrum of heavenly chocolate to golden honey is irresistible. I love the variety of your beauty.

It didn't occur to me that I never named my own mystery illness the spring before (except to misdiagnose it to friends as mono), because I'd been afraid to admit, even to my mother, how much I'd wanted to lie down somewhere and hide. Black women, tall and strong as cypress trees, didn't pull that. Pain and shame and cowardice and fear had to be kept secret.

No black woman writer in this culture can write ‘too much’. Indeed, no woman writer can write ‘too much’…No woman has ever written enough

Black skin was filled with so many barriers, so many restrictions, so many.

The voice of a Black woman should always be HERSELF ...

No edits - no erasure - no pressure - no expectations - no additions - no intruders