It was hot and stuffy in that college classroom, but that wasn’t why my hands were sweating. My fingers were wrapped in a death grip around a tattered copy of Audre Lorde’s book Zami: A New Spelling of My Name.
That day in 2015, my ethnic literature studies class had read how a young Audre Lorde was sexually assaulted by the landlady’s brother “in exchange” for helping her move into her first Brighton Beach apartment. The writing about the sexual assault is brief, candid, and strangely calm—far, far away from the fear festering in my chest. In the book, I was seeing someone who had been in similar dark corners as I had. I was afraid that my own darkness was leaking through my eyes. I was afraid that if I let go of the book, I would fall apart with it.