Minty: "You mentioned earlier that you've forgotten some of those poems now. Since Iboni kept them alive in the book, how does it feel to read your own words from back then? Is it like reading a letter from a complete stranger, or do you still feel that same high school Yvonne heart-flutter when you see them on the page?"
[The audience settles into a respectful, attentive hush, curious about that bridge between the past and the present.]
Yvonne: "Oh! Definitely reading a letter from a complete stranger! [Laughing] Then there are times when I asked myself 'I wrote that?' in an amazed type of way, but most of the time in a disgusted cringed type of way thinking 'why did i even wrote that?'. There are times I feel proud but most of the time... [Voice shaking]no."
[The audience erupts into a chorus of knowing laughter and "Oh, same!"—the kind of laughter that comes from everyone remembering their own cringeworthy teenage journals. One girl in the third row is practically doubling over, nodding her head in solidarity.]
Minty: [Laughing along with you, clutching her invisible pearls] "Oh, the cringe! It is the most universal human experience, isn't it? We are our own harshest critics, especially when it comes to our teenage selves who were just... feeling everything so loudly!"
[Minty waits for the laughter to die down, but her expression turns a bit more tender as she notices the slight shake in Yvonne's voice. She softens her posture, leaning in.]