I've Never Gotten Used To

The Inevitable Is No Less A Shock Just Because It Is Inevitable.

In My Writing I'm Trying To Explore The Violations People Commit Upon Each Other. And The Important Thing Isn't Whether I'm Angry. The More Important Thing Is, Is It True? Do These Things Really Happen?

At The Time I Was Taught To Read, It Was An Eden-like Time Of My Life. My Mother Adored Me. Everyone Adored Me. So I Associate Reading With Enormous Pleasure.

Something Settiled Inside Me, Something Heavy And Hard. It Stayed There, And I Could Not Think Of One Thing To Make It Go Away. I Thought, So This Must Be Living, This Must Be The Beginning Of The Time People Later Refer To As 'years Ago, When I Was Young'.

People Think If You Describe Someone With Glistening Brown Skin You're Writing About Race, As If The Whole Of The African Diaspora Is In Someone's Brown Skin.