When I speak, when I create, I am afraid of failing my art, my people, my family. I cannot render with the delicacy, fierceness, and tough beauty in which I perceive. I have failed many times what was given to me to do. I call out, as I have many times before in these moments: Why did you give me this legacy of poetry, this music, this body, this place from which to speak when I don’t look and act the part, and am not the best representative of my people or anyone else, and you made me a woman, when women’s voices and worth are not regarded in this society in which we are now living?
