PART I
WAYWARD CHILD
AN INTENTION
My intention was to keep her safe, but perhaps I have only succeeded in keeping herprisoner.
For many years, she’s been locked away inside of me—always alone, hidden in plainsight before masses of people. There’s significant evidence of her in my early work: oftenshe can be found looking out of windows, dwarfed² by a giant frame, barefoot, staring at anempty rope swing swaying from a lone¹ tree against a purple dusk sky. Or else she’s twostories up in a brownstone, watching the neighborhood children dancing on the sidewalkbelow. She’s shown up in a school auditorium³ in OshKosh overalls⁴, holding a ball on thesidelines, waiting and wanting to be chosen. Sometimes she is caught in a rare moment ofjoy, on a roller coaster or flying by on skates with her hands in the air. Always she lingers,though, as a dull longing⁵ just behind my eyes. She’s been scared and alone for so long,and yet through all the darkness, she’s never lost her light. She has made herself knownthrough my songs—her yearning⁶ heard over the airwaves or seen on screens. Millions ofpeople know of her, but have never known her.
She is little Mariah, and much of this will be her story, as she saw it.
Some of my earliest memories are of violent moments. Because of that, I have alwayscarried a heavy blanket with which I cover up large pieces of my childhood. It has been aburden. But I can no longer stand the weight of that blanket and the silence of the little girlsmothering beneath it. I am a grown woman now, with a little girl and boy of my own. Ihave seen, I have been scared, I have been scarred, and I have survived. I have used mysongs and voice to inspire others and to emancipate⁷ my adult self. I offer this book, inlarge part, to finally emancipate that scared little girl inside of me. It is time to give her avoice, to let her tell her story exactly as she experienced it.
Though you cannot dispute someone’s lived experience, without a doubt, details inthis book will differ from the accounts of my family, friends, and plenty of folks whothink they know me. I’ve lived that conflict for far too long, and I’m weary of that too.

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