I was late. Of course I was late. While I hope to change that little quirk about myself, it might never happen. Here goes the next 5 years of my life. I Will Speak Genius to Myself Ruth Forman So tired of trying to prove myself analyticalphilosophicalintellectually know what I mean? Those epistemologicalterminal terms dammit clutter my mind. Styrofoam words. What happened to using your own words as long as you made yourself understood? Now I must recite flawlessly another's vocabulary before I can make sense in my own. When I was a child people understood me by watching my bright eyes and butterfly hands. In the academy I suppose some white man taught everyone to go blind- to memorize terminology to clap for words seen as academic to refuse on whose words are not. And they learned their lesson well for the audition is over and there remains a brown girl in the middle of a polished wooden floor. And so here I am lighting a disappointed cigarette