Brenna Twohy > Quotes

“Peach pits are poisonous. This is not a mistake. Girlhood is growing fruit around cyanide. It will never be your for swallowing.”
― Brenna Twohy, Swallowtail

“Sometimes, a child will go under
while their parent is watching,
and they don’t even know
anything is wrong.
My mom asks if everything’s okay,
and I say of course.
Drowning is a quiet,
desperate thing.”
― Brenna Twohy, Forgive Me My Salt

“Am I supposed to be grateful to have survived this?”
― Brenna Twohy, Forgive Me My Salt

“The fifth problem
is that when a new man tells you
he likes you too much
already,
it doesn’t sound like a promise.
It sounds like a smoke alarm,
warning you to get out fast—
If you hurry, you might miss the worst of it.”
― Brenna Twohy, Forgive Me My Salt

“just so you remember
trauma knows exactly where you live --
who do you think built the house?”
― Brenna Twohy, Forgive Me My Salt

“This is the hardest part—
That boy is not made of fists.
That boy
learned how to braid my hair.
These things do not un-truth themselves
when the first door slams.
I did not stop loving him
all the months I was holding my breath.”
― Brenna Twohy, Forgive Me My Salt

“The best part of having superpowers
is that most of the time
other people do not even know that you
have them—
like when Peter Parker goes paintballing,
people just think he is a really awesome paintballer,
and he totally gets away with using his Spidey senses,
and when Aquaman is on OkCupid,
and he says he spends a lot of time
thinking about global warming,
people just think he’s a conscientious
dude,
and on the days that I get out of bed
and put on appropriate workplace attire
and eat three meals, none of which are Hot Pockets,
people can’t even tell that right then,
at that moment,
I am using my superpowers.

Anxiety is your body’s response to perceived danger
and mine is so strong
you would have to call it a superpower.

It never gives up;
It is always looking for a fight;
It is the fiercest part of me.”
― Brenna Twohy, Forgive Me My Salt

“(...) like he left a piece of himself with you
and you are terrified
he is coming back for it.

Or he left a piece of himself with you
and you are terrified
he is not coming back for it.”
― Brenna Twohy, Forgive Me My Salt

“I learnt how to make this urgent flame look like a lantern.”
― Brenna Twohy, Swallowtail

“It’s called a mondegreen, a misheard lyric, like how the Ramones will sing, I wanna be sedated, & my mom will nod along as she sings, I want a piece of bacon. It’s the way our brains fill in gaps, make sense of things we didn’t
or couldn’t hear, the way my mom said,
he’s gone, & I asked her where?”
― Brenna Twohy, Swallowtail

“To love me
is to love a haunted house.
It's fun to visit once a year,
but no one wants to live there.”
― Brenna Twohy

“Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority”

And sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person”

And they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay.”
― Brenna Twohy

“A magician talks about the record for holding one’s breath as his assistant lowers herself into a tank of water.

He calls it twenty-two minutes, but I swear to you it’s longer.
I swear to you, it’s years.”
― Brenna Twohy, Swallowtail