WHY I WRITE

Speak.

I am a self proclaimed “talking girl,” That is, a back talker. When I was a child I was seen and unheard, or rather, unseen and unheard. Non-offensive, as my body offended. A hallmark of African American girlhood, or an always disabled girlhood. 

The invisible girl works to stay invisible, she wills herself not to take up space. Grown folks will love her for it. Her low maintenance. Her inability to do as a child does, to be loud or inquisitive or selfish.  

Before I was a writer, I was a reader. I despised consuming the stories of boys, failed to see them as actualized or individual while they remained ever central. I loved girls. I loved consuming stories about us and for us, and then I loved women. Vocally, and loudly. Thought, to voice, to paper. 

In and of itself literacy is radical, political. I did not do as children do, but now I do as a woman does.

 I wonder how awful—how jarring—it was to learn that the invisible girl

 She does speak.