This is how we will change the world.

I will sit with you and I will tell you my story.

I will tell you it in a way that makes sense to me and I’ll be as truthful as my heart can manage. I will try to make you see what it’s like to be me.

And I’ll make no apology for the way I feel. I’ll linger on things I find important. I’ll gloss over everything I find uninteresting. I won’t even try and tell you all sides. It’s my story, after all, and only I can tell it. Sometimes I’ll use words chosen to provoke a specific reaction, sometimes I’ll be so caught up in a moment that I’ll speak candidly and without pretence. I will paint horizons broadly and fixate on the tiniest inconsequential detail.

This is my right just as this is my story.

Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is not purely coincidental. It is entirely meant. Many of them are real, but they will not act in my story how they would act in theirs. They will be interpreted through me. My ideas, my prejudices, my respect, my privilege. You must understand that as I speak. That I am talking from the only perspective I’ve ever known, looking out through my eyes, speaking with my tongue.

I will tell you my story. And when I have finished I will thank you for listening to me.

And then I will participate in the most revolutionary act imaginable. The one that is going to change the world.

I will close my mouth and I will listen to your story.