Nikki Grimes

“You laugh, rap my woody shell with wicked whispers shaped like knuckles, then toss me aside. Lucky for me, I don't bruise easily. Besides, you loss is someone else's gain for I am coconut, and the heart of me is sweeter than you know.”

“Only the wind shatters the silence. I have been here before choking in solitude.”

“The day she clips her way out of her cocoon, the only sound she plans to hear is a deafening cheer.”

“I'm an artist...The difference is that I don't tell anybody. I refuse to give them new reasons to laugh at me.”

“The crashing sound of years lost shattered in her ears, and new fears emerged from the looking glass. Sometimes I wonder if she'll ever sing again.”

“I'd pretend their words were water and let them roll off my back. Now, I'm nobody's duck, and their words stung a whole lot more than water.”

“Do something about it, or shut up.”

“Love is not me being who you want. Your definition is a whirlpool trying to suck me in and I'm drowning. Don't you see?...It's time...Time you stop telling me who to be, how to live. This is my portrait. You chose your canvas. Let me choose mine.”

“Ready or not, I peer into your soul and dive deep... Your eyes don't like what I see. You don't want to be me. So you curse and smash the mirror which gets you what? A bit of blood , a handful of glass splinters, another source of pain.”

“Look around. Take the tour. Fear hangs on the wall and shame sometimes. Emotional dislocation too. But I am brave in my admission. Are you? When no one is looking, I check to see if anyone seems as scared as me, or lonely, or shy, or insecure. Is it just me? I'm not so sure. Is your heart an onion too? Show me yours, I'll show you mine we used to say. Your turn. Peel away.”

“If a dream is in your heart, you never lose it.”

“At the edge of heartbreak, we both take a leap into the unknown...That's when we see it, a buoy callled friendship.”

“Jealousy is a waste of energy...focus on what I have, not what I don't.”

“The lack of goodness in the young gun's heart was oxygen to the fire, and so he burned for a good long while before I woke. The dream stoked my faith in the judgment and justice that will come someday or this afternoon soon. I turn up the collar of my white robe, relieved to know that God's got me covered 'cause I'm good, but not that good.”

“Forget who I really am, who I really want to be.”

“You have to take people one at a time, check out what's in their head and heart before you judge.”

“He'll never do it again,' she swears, but he will because she'll let him. Now me? I've got no use for imitation love that packs a punch.”

“So don't tell me that I can't fit in. My heart beats like a talking drum.”

“The fact is that you are more comfortable with myth than man.”

“I woke up this morning exhausted from hiding the me of me. So I stand here confiding there's more to Devon than jump shot and rim. I'm more than tall and lengthy of limb. I dare you to peep behind these eyes, discover the poet in tough-guy disguise. Don't call me Jump Shot. My name is surprise.”

“Choose whatever box you like, Mike. Just don't put me in one, son. Believe me, I won't fit.”