Look beyond your tasseled capsAnd you will see injustice.At the end of your fingertipsYou will find cruelties,Irrational hate, bedrock sorrowAnd terrifying loneliness.There is your work.

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.

This bed yawnsbeneath the weightof our absent selves.

As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them.