"For a star to be born, there is one thing that must happen: a gaseous nebula must collapse. So collapse. Crumble. This is not your destruction. This is your birth."

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"I will always want myself. Always. Darling, I wrote myself a love poem two nights ago. I don’t know where you get this from but I am whole; woman who grows flowers between her teeth. I tend to my garden. I dance myself out of pain. You think women like me crawl for pity? You ever seen the offspring of a lion eat grass? This wanting of myself gets stronger with age. I host myself to myself. I am whole." Ijeoma Umebinyuo

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"In truth, you never reach ‘healing’, you simply reconnect with that sacred innocent place in yourself that was never traumatised in the first place - never broken, never damaged, never not whole; your...