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Two Sides of the Same Woman
In the first picture, I was a fat drunk. I was getting fucked up at least twice a week. After Larry died, I was drunk damn near every other day. Then epilepsy entered the chat. Hell, I had gotten drunk the night before I had my seizure. I had a choice after the diagnosis: continue…
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Sharpshooters of My Bloodline
Lately I’ve been thinking about my great-grandfather and his little brother. They were enslaved on the Barrow Plantation in Louisiana when they made the decision to run. How they did it, I will never know. At just eighteen and fifteen years old, they chose motion over fear, the unknown over the certainty of chains. They…
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Fabulous Me
In May, it will be twenty years since I graduated from college. Me—the high school dropout they quietly counted out. Me—the mother of two children by the age of twenty-one. Me—the welfare recipient society loves to reduce to a statistic. And also me—the college student who walked across that stage with a 3.8 GPA, a…
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The Life I Planned at Eight
As I lay in bed contemplating my existence, a random thought floated into my mind: did I ever actually want to get married, or was that desire planted there by society? When I was a little girl, I had big plans for myself. I wanted to be a lawyer—specifically a prosecuting attorney—so I could lock…
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What is Feminism?
Feminism is the radical, sometimes inconvenient idea that women are fully human—with minds of their own, bodies that belong to them, and lives that are not side quests in someone else’s story. Feminism is about autonomy. At its core, feminism says women deserve political, economic, social, and personal equality. Not favors. Not protection. Not pedestal…
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Sole Survivor
Six years next month. Six quiet, thunderous years of carrying a title no one applies for. A sole survivor is the last remaining member of their immediate family—the final branch on a once-leafy tree. My mother gave birth to three children. I am the only one left. No siblings to call and say, “Do you…
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Respectability Politics and the Policing of Black Male Love
It’s more acceptable for a Black man to have ten children with ten different women than for him to be gay—and that fact should stop us in our tracks. We live in a world where irresponsibility gets a pass if it performs masculinity the “right” way. A man can leave a trail of single mothers,…
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Survival Is My Resume
I do a good job of not being depressed, but let’s be clear—it’s work. Daily, intentional, teeth-gritting work. I followed the script American society handed me, even when the pages were stained and missing chapters. I became a teenage mother and didn’t earn my GED until I was twenty-seven. I went to college while raising…
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This Is Planet Earth (Bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop)
I’m sitting here rewatching Planet Earth, one of the greatest documentaries ever produced. Before I watched it, I was on the verge of atheism—but then the planet itself started testifying. I knew then that it had to be something higher than just us mere mortals. Something vast and patient. Something that doesn’t need applause or…
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Adults
Grown folks will stomp your spirit down to the bone if you let them. Adults come loaded with agendas, unhealed wounds, power plays, side-eyes, and opinions they swear are facts but don’t know their asses from a hole in the wall. Everybody wants something. Everybody’s dumb and proud of it. I’m tired of their dirty…
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The Potty Mouth Granny 