“I bite my fingernails till they look like disease, pull strips of my skin away. Get Daddy's razor out cabinet. Cut cut cut arm wrist, not trying to die, trying to plug myself back in. (111)”

“Can the light dying behind my eyes berecorded in rhyme schemes?I meet this page in the morning beating back deathtrying to re-member.”

“I'm ashamed, this is my mama. No matter how fly my braids is, how I grease my skin, scalp, no matter how many jew'ries, this is my mother. -Said by Precious Jones in Push”

“… but you cant get all hung up on details when you are trying to survive…”

“I'm alive inside. A bird is my heart. Mama and Daddy is not win. I'm winning. I'm drinking hot chocolate in the Village wif girls--all kind who love me. How that is so I don't know. How Mama and Daddy kknow me sixteen years and hate me, how a stranger meet me and love me. Must be what they already had in they pocket. ”

“A girl takes my tongue, signs her name& asks me how do I like it?”

“How that is so I don't know. How Mama and Daddy know me sixteen years and hate me, how a stranger meet me and love me. (131)”