Ms. Black Pearl:

The Original, The One, The Only. Ms. Black Pearl

I am the only Black Pearl.

Search my name, and you’ll find echoes,

homonyms in the digital sea—

but there is only one.

Original. Unrepeated.

Ms. Black Pearl

I was born under

Carter’s sun,

a Gen X soul with politics already pulsing in my veins

on an Election Day in ’76.

A love child, a precious gift in a world quick to judge.

Before Reading Rainbow, words were walls.

ADHD and dyslexia—silent, unseen storms.

Spee ...