Sabrina Benaim > Quotes

“i held hands
with my sadness,
sang it songs in the shower,
fed it lunch,
got it drunk
& put it to bed early.”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“mom says where did anxiety come from?
anxiety is the cousin visiting from out of town
depression felt obliged to bring to the party.
mom, i am the party.
only, i am a party i don't want to be at.”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“insomnia has this romantic way of making the moon feel like perfect company.”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“my heart has developed a kind of amnesia, where it remembers everything but itself.”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“i am sleepwalking on an ocean of happiness i cannot baptize myself in.”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“mom still doesn't understand.

mom,
can't you see?
neither do i.”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“how do i teach my ears to hear songs without the ghosts of you inside of them?”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“My heart is a messy bedroom I always distract myself from cleaning.”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“it's weird how a jacket can be more reliable than a father.”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“sure, i make plans. i make plans but i don't want to go. i make plans because i know i should want to go, i know at some point i would have wanted to go, it's just not that much fun having fun when you don't want to have fun.”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“mom, i am lonely.
i think i learnt it when dad left;
how to turn the anger into lonely,
the lonely into busy.”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“i wouldn't say I'm sensitive, I would say I'm highly susceptible to feeling a lot”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“when i see a candle, i see the flesh of a church.
the flicker of life sparks a memory younger than noon;
i am standing beside her open casket,
it is the moment i realize every person i ever come to know will someday die,
besides, mom, i'm not afraid of the dark,
perhaps that is part of the problem.”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“my happy is a high fever that will break, my happy is as hollow as a pin-pricked egg”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“i am best prepared for the worst case scenario. the best case scenario scares me. flight response. my mother tells me i am a bird. when she says i am a bird, she means the whole world is my cage.”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“i miss you, but i don't wish you were here.”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“we cannot control what we remember, but we can control how we remember.”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“everybody loves me because i'm good at making people feel good. i'm good at making people feel good because i have had a lot of practice on myself”
― Sabrina Benaim

“love made me feel like I knew the answer, but when I raised my hand, I was the only one in the room. What I mean is, have you ever felt the ache of swallowing starlight? that cinnamon burn?”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“silent treatment: the fantastic devastation of unwanted silence. that heavy slink; how it hangs with purpose; mean, easy.”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“i tell
my grandmother
i think love is
a hungry caterpillar

i am no meal
historically
i have never been
more
than a midnight snack”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“I do not use her signature trick of turning her heart inside out,
the way she showed me, to wear her softness as a bullet proof vest.
Armor is for women who have something to lose”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“i forgive myself even if i am the last person i want to forgive. whatever i have come from/wherever i am going.”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“i miss you, but i don't wish you were here”
― Sabrina Benaim

“my mother the sparrow
my mother the nest
my mother the branches
my mother the leaves
my mother the tree who cut and whittled herself to build me
a boat offering safe passage
my eyes watch our slow sailing reflection in the water
in its stillness, it's almost impossible to tell
if the tiny yellow lights scattered across its surface are
mirrored stars or crocodile eyes”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“in my story, i am the protagonist & the bad thing, i have to learn how to bend the light out of myself.”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“i only doused myself in gasoline when you handed me that match because i was tired of being a metaphor. why is it always about burning?”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“& my heart has developed a kind of amnesia, where it remembers everything but itself.”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“the truth hurts loudest when you toss it around, & the echo...the echo is what drives girls like me mad with remembering.”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“my mother tells me i am a bird. when she says i am a bird, she means the whole world is my cage.”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks