By: Kayla Brown-Dixon
Kayla Brown-Dixon is a Midwestern Black writer whose work explores mental health, self-love, and healing, drawing from her lived experience with depression and anxiety. Through poetry and personal writing, she seeks to foster connection, honesty, and liberation, particularly for young Black women. She shares her work at kaylabwriting.com.
Glass breath
Frozen soles.
The right way escapes me– I step anyway,
into the darkness
that matches my skin.
Nappy and negligent,
scrappy but intelligent.
They say we were built
for the heat.
But I sleep with my AC on, and drink iced coffee
even in December.
I’ve gotten frostbite before, but nothing’s been amputated–yet
I still tremble.
I still exhale like a dragon. I still march,
leaving behind maps of my toes for my child.
