Breath | Voice | Fire is a compilation of three creative nonfiction essays written in response to the rise of anti-black violence and the existential crisis of blackness currently at the forefront of social unrest in America. The concept is based on a creative writing trope (breath, voice, fire) that connects the violence that continues to occur as a result of anti-black racism to the notion of systemic racism in America. This work contrasts literature from the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Lives Matter movement, Russian literature, biblical narrative, and postmodern existentialist philosophy to construct an understanding of the zeitgeist or the “Spirit of the times.”