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The following stories have been published previously, in slightly different form: “Virgins” (The Paris Review), “Harvest” (Phoebe), “Someone Ought to Tell Her There’s Nowhere to Go” (A Public Space), “The King of a Vast Empire” (5 Chapters), and “Robert E. Lee Is Dead” (Black Renaissance Noire).

“The Bridge Poem” by Donna Kate Rushin used by permission of the author.

“Between Ourselves.” Copyright © 1976 by Audre Lorde, from The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde by Audre Lorde. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 by Danielle Evans

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Evans, Danielle.

Before you suffocate your own fool self / Danielle Evans. p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-101-44347-7

1. African American women—Fiction. 2. Self-realization in women—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3605.V3648B

813’.6—dc22

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.