Becoming

Ontological

I see a vision 

in stored 

for much more 

than we 

give credit to 

even when are remised 

at what Heaven sent 

Go often days 

with no, repent 

When judgment clouds 

an empty brain 

and war is outside 

Just within the frame 

Hallowed be thy name 

Now tell me baby 

what do you see 

now baby tell me 

what you wanna 

be 

I want you to get all of me 

Yeah, living life 

through divinity 

God gives you life and serenity 

my baby

now tell me, baby 

what are we suppose to be

Tears on the Floor

I’m living on a precipice asking if I’m next to this like can you get 

the exodus

I might as well 

Just sign the check to this 

and send the rest 

up ship

cus I know 

things getting harder 

and I know

and your heart is growing colder 

and these things

Baby, don’t get me wrong 

we just had

a lot going on

popping in love 

like Adam and Eve 

but it’s the blood 

that we bleed 

that keeps us in need of 

sinful intelligence masking self 

and lying doormat 

for the hell of it 

prideful ways 

and material glaze 

And placing ourselves 

In unthinking ways 

And speaking unethical 

things getting sexual 

it’s mind over matter 

so I’m here 

to let you know

Fall In Love

The tree’s leaves lean in a certain way 

when you walk by

It’s the presence and divinity 

That comes to arrive

Nature has an existence in our reality

Traveling different destinations 

within my heart gallery

1+1 is a simple equation 

the two would be both 

So amazing 

Baby just tell me 

what you see 

open up, see possibilities 

go with life with ease 

float within the trees 

be mindful of what you need 

love is here to receive 

release and just breathe 

believe in God

Dehja Vaughn is an educator, podcaster, PhD candidate, speaker, and creative writer whose work centers Black consciousness, liberation, and economic imagination across the Diaspora. Drawing from research, cultural analysis, and poetic expression, Vaughn examines how political psychology shapes Black life while exploring pathways toward mental, emotional, and material flourishing.

Her practice moves across scholarship and creative production, using qualitative and quantitative inquiry alongside storytelling to illuminate overlooked dimensions of Black experience. Vaughn’s work remains grounded in a commitment to narrative shift — foregrounding achievement, complexity, vulnerability, and possibility as interconnected elements of Black collective life.

Within the Black Life Everywhere Atlanta cohort, Vaughn’s writing offers a reflective counterpoint to visual documentation. Her poems trace interior landscapes shaped by faith, relationship, uncertainty, aspiration, and self-interrogation. Questions of becoming, belonging, and divine orientation surface repeatedly, positioning the self as both subject and site of transformation.

Across Ontological, Tears on the Floor, and Fall In Love, Vaughn returns to recurring concerns: the search for purpose, the tension between struggle and devotion, the persistence of love amid instability, and the presence of spiritual grounding within everyday life. The poems move through confession, dialogue, and affirmation, capturing moments where reflection becomes a method of survival and self-definition.

Presented alongside Angela Hill’s photographs, Vaughn’s work expands the series’ attention to relational life by turning inward — mapping the emotional and philosophical terrain that accompanies public gathering, caregiving, organizing, and observation. Together, the texts and images situate Black life as both visible practice and interior process, shaped by memory, faith, imagination, and ongoing becoming.