Falling in love with words was almost instant. I always loved the way they sounded in my mouth, looked on the page. And when mom made us read, it became my favorite thing ~ that, and running. I fell in love with words ~ fast.

But, I fell in love with me ~ slow.  

I mean, I loved me in the beginning. But people cut, sometimes, and put effort into reminding me that my dark skin just didn’t fit in. And I fell for those lies for awhile.

But when I finally discovered my unique beauty. Embraced my own voice. Then the quiet warrior inside me…started to believe the truth:

“God didn’t make no mess when he made you. And it don’t matter what they say or what they do. What matters is what gets into you.”

I was awake again. And the plan was to let nothing but light get in.

And then, I chose to love a man who wasn't ready... His insecurities became our constant arguments. His secret fears and angry fists became the end to our ill-fated marriage. And I landed on a 1000 bathroom floors in tears, over and over again.

Purging, sometimes, can take years. But the woman I am now has a lot less fear.

I’ve met the “brave me” and she isn’t afraid of facing almost anything {I mean those little green lizards still give me a scare, but I’m getting there}.

deepest fears waited to meet me every night when I closed my eyes.

So I learned how to fight. How to really fight. 

People throw around scriptures like slang, but it turns out, those words are alive and can be handled like weapons, if you know how.

So, I devoured them the way a child eats candy.

My bedroom wall was tattooed... with scriptures and poems, prayers and pain, written and typed on jagged journal pages

🔥“beauty for ashes" 

🔥"double for trouble"

🔥"fearfully and wonderfully made"

🔥"look to you and I am radiant" 

🔥"your oil of joy for my mourning"

I was fighting for my peace of mind. I was fighting for my entire life.  

Back then, I wrote two things:...poetry inspired by what God said about me, and poetry exposing my secret pain. I kept reading and collecting every scripture that spoke to me. I kept writing and confessing in poetry. And that tattooed spot in my room became my personal wailing wall. When the tears came {and they came every night for what felt like forever} I would walk up to the wall and just read and speak these confessions through my tears.

I kept doing it until those confessions became my real life. Until joy returned to my days and nights. Until I was happy without trying. And that wall became the poetry that I share today.