“I carried the sound of my own misnaming like background music—like life’s playlist was chosen for me and I was supposed to dance anyway.”

“These words are complimentary, darling—but don’t confuse that with access. You’re welcome here, exquisitely so. But know that even our shade is curated. And some of it may be for you.”

Daddies were fictional. TV props. Until Lee Black’s daddy walked him into class and I had to rearrange my entire cosmology right after lunch.

My grandmother didn’t flinch. Didn’t question. Just took one look and knew—I was blood. And just like that, the study became a nursery and the sermon paused itself.

I didn’t cry when I called. I prepared documents. Rolled out my facts. Asked my questions. The thing about the void? It doesn’t echo—it just goes quiet.

Restraint is something I wear like regalia. You think it’s a tux—when really, it’s armor that keeps your chaos off my skin.

I didn’t know a man could break a woman like that in real life. She was supposed to survive anything. So when he finished her, something in me broke too.

I packed Ralph Lauren in a trash bag and left behind my encyclopedia set on cinder blocks. I was eleven—and that was the day silence became my best friend