Tag: June Jordan

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Personal Reflection

It lands like a correction spoken through clenched teeth. Not loud, not theatrical—just firm. The kind of sentence you say after you’ve been talked over one too many times. It doesn’t ask for agreement. It doesn’t explain itself. It just stands there.

Because most of us have worn that word at some point—wrong. Not stitched onto us all at once, but added piece by piece. A comment here. A look there. The subtle shift in someone’s tone when you say what you really think.

I can still hear it in small moments—the pause before I speak, the second-guessing, the quiet rehearsal in my head while someone else is already talking. Like I’m trying to sand down the edges of what I’m about to say before it even leaves my mouth.

That’s how it settles in. Not as a wound, but as a habit. You start adjusting yourself to avoid friction. You call it being thoughtful, being careful—but it’s just fear wearing a better suit.

June Jordan doesn’t negotiate with that voice. She cuts it off at the root. Not with anger—but with clarity. A refusal to let other people’s discomfort rewrite her identity.

Because once you accept that label, you don’t just question your words—you question your right to have them.

There’s a different kind of quiet that comes when you stop correcting yourself mid-sentence. When you let the thought land exactly as it is—unpolished, maybe imperfect, but honest.

Not every word will be right. That’s not the point.
The point is—it’s yours.

And that’s enough.

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Reflective Prompt

Where do you still edit yourself before you’re even heard?

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Personal Reflection

It sounds like something you hear at a rally.
Something meant to get people moving.

But the longer I sit with it, the less it feels like a slogan and the more it feels like a warning.

We spend a lot of time waiting.

Waiting for the right moment.
Waiting for the right person.
Waiting for someone else to fix what feels broken.

Waiting feels safer than acting.

Because if you’re waiting, you can still believe change is coming from somewhere outside you.

There’s a quiet kind of fear in realizing nobody is coming.

No rescue.
No perfect opportunity.
No moment where everything suddenly makes sense and you finally feel ready.

Just you.
Your choices.
Your voice.
Your willingness to move even when you don’t feel prepared.

That realization can feel heavy at first.

Like the responsibility just got handed back to you whether you wanted it or not.

But there’s another side to it too.

If no one else is coming…
then no one else gets to decide who you become.

Maybe the point isn’t that we have to do everything alone.

Maybe the point is that change starts the moment we stop waiting for permission to begin.

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Reflective Prompt
Where in your life have you been waiting for the right moment instead of becoming the one who creates it?