Dear Broke Black Girl

By Tanesha Barnes

Dear Broke Black Girl by Tanesha Barnes is a poetic novel that tells the story and provides open letters to women who experience(d) emotional, financial, relational/social, and institutionalized brokenness. Sharing stories of experiences and personal triumph has the potential to give hope, to inspire, and to help change lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Sep 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9780359946617

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Dear Broke Black Girl

Dear Broke Black Girl

Tanesha Barnes

Dear Broke Black Girl

Dear Broke Black Girl

Copyright © 2019 by Tanesha Barnes

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.

This book is a work of both fiction and non-fiction.  Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, and incidents may be the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locals may be coincidental.

First Edition: June 2019

Book by Tanesha Barnes

Cover design by Morg Lapre

ISBN: 978-0-359-94661-7

Dear Broke Black Girl

Columbia, Mississippi 39401

www.dearbrokeblackgirl.com

Ordering Information:

U.S. trade bookstores and wholesalers: Please contact Tanesha Barnes at [e-mail].

To my beautiful mother.

You were the strongest woman I will ever know.

I strive for a strength like yours.

Here’s to your lasting legacy.

I STOOD UP FOR MYSELF

I stood up for myself today.

They have suppressed my voice for over 20 years.  They did not want me to speak. Or hum. Or mumble. Or whisper.  They could not stand the sound of it.  They made me believe that I lost my worth by speaking my unheard thoughts. That the mere existence of any inflection from my mouth would harm others.  That a monotonous silence was a melody to their ears. Until one day, I died, and I died with my mouth closed.

But I stood up for myself today.

I became so full of emotion that I could not bear the sound of my own silence again.  I opened my mouth.  Nothing came out.  I could feel my thoughts forming sentences.  I could sense the sentences forming the vibes that I wanted others to feel.  I could see a line.  Then a verse.  Then a paragraph. Broken into stanzas. Forming poetry.

I stood up for myself today.

I stopped wondering what it felt like to speak my words and began to write them down.  I looked fear in the eyes and understood that it was time.  It was time for my voice to be heard, my fears to be faced, my heart to be unearthed from the dirt from which my rose grew and my thorns protrude.

I stood up for myself today.

And, for the first time in my life, I feel free.

DEAR BROKE BLACK GIRL,

DON’T LET BROKENNESS

DEFINE YOU FOREVER.

I remember sitting at home on my couch, seeping into a deep depression.  My life wasn’t where I had imagined it would be at 25 years old.  I had done everything that I said I would do—go to school, finish in four years, go to graduate school, finish in a year, graduate with honors, find a job, pay all of my bills on time, and make my family proud.  Those were my ultimate goals—and I had crushed them. Why was I feeling like I had failed?

The world was convinced that I had life all figured out because I had accomplished all of these