Have you noticed that the most influential spoken word artists out there are lesbians?

Maybe that's because only someone who loves women and is a woman can truly understand how to heal a woman.

Maybe it's because we deal with so many downcast looks that we've had to break the chain.

So many of the best speakers and poets take on a certain pattern that I thought was the sexiest thing and couldn't quite understand.

And then I realized it was confidence.  That's why although my speaking voice may be low and crass as soon as I talk about something I care about I just speak and let my own voice calm my fears.

Maybe that's the secret, we are the children left to self-soothe or those who learned too quickly to have to soothe another.  

We weep for the world that many think wouldn't bat an eye for us.

Let me tell you this, my love makes me feel closer to god than any bigoted church and my tranquility is found in her presence.

Let me tell you that I would fight to ensure that all women, all people can stand tall and if it takes some husky girl with short hair and glasses to show  a woman that she doesnt need make up then so be it.

But neither I, nor the most influential person of our time can make a woman love herself if she doesnt want to.

Dear, you have to love yourself and stop fighting it, stop denying yourself happiness because its the only thing you can control.

Stop going to others for help if you're not going to listen, stop sitting alone if it doesn't solve your problems.

Realize that only you can turn your ember into a beacon and you owe it to that little girl full of hope and wonder that you once were to become something better than a liar who's too scared to be happy.

Learn to speak with the voice of all those activists you admire and learn to believe in all the fairy tales you laugh at but learn that only you can save yourself.

Learn like I did, even if you didn't learn it from me.