Nikki Yeager

She continued to tell us about her rape, her childhood, being molested, being a lesbian, being without a child, being without her country, being from a church and without a church all at one time. She spoke about the things saved for intimate conversations behind closed doors. FOr that moment we were there, in the public, but alone with no one in the world but Staceyann and the ghosts who haunt her. The ghosts of color, of gender, of femininity, of childbirth, of inequality, of pain, of loneliness, of discrimination... the ghosts we all roam with on occasion.

With a stoccato of verses, she brought cheers from the crowd and goosebumps to my arms. I wanted to cry, then I laughed. Because she has a way of bringing you along on her whirwind of unpredictable emotions. The ugly always comes with a joke and the beautiful always comes with a tragedy. And you never feel terrible about laughing. After all, she's where she is because she hasn't given in to the trauma. A slew of curse words fall from her mouth when she speaks, intermingled with the eloquence of a true poet. It's the dichotomy that really gets me. It's her thought that really brings it home. 

She's beautiful on the inside and she makes every person in her presence feel the same.