A Map of My Want

Book excerpt: From the critically acclaimed author of HoodWitch, Faylita Hicks’s second collection explores the question, Where do our desires take us? An offspring of Audre Lorde’s seminal essay “Uses of the Erotic,” Hicks’s A Map of My Want follows a nonbinary femme as they explore the sensual intersection of the personal and the political, a crossroads to which their sexual liberation brought them after their escape from a religious cult. Lyrically, Hicks interprets the US Declaration of Independence's infamous “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” for themselves. Combining storytelling with Western astrology, this poetry collection is an intimate erotic spell through which Hicks conjures joy as they develop an alternate theory on how to attain happiness—through ecstatic healing.