Use your voice before you die.

When you first start to use your voice, you're afraid people will turn away from you. They will think you're a monster. They will scorn and persecute you, take away your privileges.

When you first start to speak out, it hurts.

But soon you realize that if you don't use your voice, you will never change a thing. If you stay silent, you will enable the evil.

So you use your voice, because you owe it to the ones who came before. You use it because silence no longer is an option. You use it even though it hurts. And people turn away.

But in their place, new people come. The right people. Your soulmates, your compañeras, your comrades, your family. So you use your voice some more, and the abundance blossoms all around you.

And then you run through the streets yelling USE YOUR VOICE! USE YOUR VOICE BEFORE YOU'RE DEAD! like a madwoman. But who cares? You don't. And maybe you are a madwoman. But you aren't silent and you never will be again.

Your voice is the only thing you truly own. It's like a fingerprint, you know? Nobody has one like yours.

#tellyourstory
#useyourvoice
#heroinesjourney
#beyourownheroine
#womenwriters
#decolonizeyourself

painting by Heather Jo Flores, oil on wood