“Somebody had tried to communicate, ‘There is no room for you here.’ [...] And then, I think the reason that [spoken word poetry] captured me so tremendously was that it was the first time, as a fourteen-year-old girl, that I felt like a roomful of people were listening to me, and saw me, and I was allowed to talk about these fears and flaws and joys and doubts in a way that I hadn’t before, and in some ways it felt like the whole room was communicating, ‘There is room for you here.’ 

And I don’t think I’ve ever forgotten that, and I think over and over again anytime I’m in a room where people have come to listen to me speak, I never take for granted what a gift that is, and what it means that people communicate to me that there is room for me here.”