If it weren’t for her setting me free, I may still be a caged bird today, holding my own daughter captive on a shit-laden perch.

Listen kid, it’s just you and me now, so let’s help each other out. Always be honest with me, and show me how to be the mother and father I never had. I’ll make a mess of things sometimes, and I’m sorry in advance, but I’ll try. My word is bond.

A mother isn’t the person who births you; it’s the person who rears you and shows you love.

While America will always, I think, feel foreign to me, New York City is my home. This is where I can construct my own identity freely and reject labels imposed on me.

Going in cycles makes you psycho.

At least the caged bird still sings.