I studied acting for five years. I quit college at that point. You know, I go hard. When I know I'm supposed to go in a direction, I'm fully committed and I go all the way. Everything falls to the side and I'm all in. So I completely dove into acting even though I was almost 30.

I loved to write in my late teens I had a 'zine. But it wasn't until I went back to school, later on in my 20s, that I actually saw that I had writing talent.

This career essentially chased me down while I was on the spoken-word scene in New York. I kept hearing that my delivery of my poetry - which was very personal and cathartic at the time- was very moving to folks. People thought that I was an actress because of my delivery, when I was just dropping into the work and really pouring out my soul.

My own perception of cops was that they came into your neighborhood, they roughed up people that you loved for no reason and took them away. As a child you saw that.

To call the police is a really big deal because you don't snitch - that's the culture you grow up in.