“Bologna girl, that's me.”

“I’m the girl who trips on the dance floor and can’t find her way to the exit. All eyes on me.”

“Momma said that ghosts couldn't move over water. That's why Africans got trapped in the Americas.. They kept moving us over the water, stealing us away from our ghosts and ancestors, who cried salty rivers into the sand. That's where Momma was now, wailing at the water's edge, while her girls were pulled out of sight under white sails that cracked in the wind.”

“Dead girl walking” the boys say in the halls.“Tell us your secrets” the girls whisper, one toilet to another. "I am that girl. I am the spaces between my thighs, daylight shinning through. I am the bones they want, wired on a porcelain frame.”

“A breath of steam trickles out, filled with the sobs of a grown woman breaking into girl-sized pieces.”

“Because I am still a little girl who believes in Santa and the tooth fairy and you.”

“I didn't fit.I was a different size, a different shape. I kept trying to squeeze into a body, a skin suit, that was too small. It rubbed me the wrong way. I blistered. I callused. I scarred over and it kept hurting. I would never fit.But, really, I didn't want to fit. That's why it was hard.”