I Think I Have Come

Suicide Is Absolute, And If You Think You Will Survive By Hiding Who You Really Are, You Are Sadly Misled: There Is No Such Thing As Partial Or Intermittent Suicide. You Can Only Survive If You - Who You Really Are - Do Survive.

As A Child I Was Taught That To Tell The Truth Was Often Painful. As An Adult I Have Learned That Not To Tell The Truth Is More Painful, And That The Fear Of Telling The Truth - Whatever The Truth May Be - That Fear Is The Most Painful Sensation Of A Moral Life.

If We Lived In A Democratic State Our Language Would Have To Hurtle, Fly, Curse, And Sing, In All The Common American Names, All The Undeniable And Representative And Participating Voices Of Everybody Here.

As A Poet And Writer, I Deeply Love And I Deeply Hate Words. I Love The Infinite Evidence And Change And Requirements And Possibilities Of Language.

Like A Lot Of Black Women, I Have Always Had To Invent The Power My Freedom Requires.