Aimee Herman > Quotes

“Have you ever accidentally swallowed a piece of celery without chewing? The feeling of its weight lodged in your throat, scraping its way down. You think you’re gonna choke, but your throat takes over and digests it, and it takes all the wind out of you. You need to lie down, catch your breath, maybe even take a nap.
That’s how it feels to come out each time.”
― Aimee Herman, Everything Grows

“What happens when we say something out loud? Does it become more real? Is it any less really when we keep it to ourselves?”
― Aimee Herman, Everything Grows

“But this music. This music has limbs that can hold me into morning.”
― Aimee Herman

“I feel like my body is in a waiting room.”
― Aimee Herman, Everything Grows

“Call yourself a planet because all this space derives from punctured cells and this floatation device called gender is permitting you to wander.”
― Aimee Herman, Meant to Wake Up Feeling

“I never want to be known. I’d rather be alone than have everyone talk about me and bother about my life. That’s why I want to be an astronaut. I just want to travel into space and stay there. Be somewhere where no one else goes.”
― Aimee Herman, Everything Grows

“Extend a dinner invitation to the one that got away. Serve a scavenger hunt of moon shadows.”
― Aimee Herman, Meant to Wake Up Feeling

“When they ask you how you're doing, tell them you're working on a master's degree on breath control.”
― Aimee Herman, Meant to Wake Up Feeling

“how much am I willing to pay out of pocket for this body”
― Aimee Herman, Meant to Wake Up Feeling

“dear freud.
if I set myself on fire will you donate your prescription pad and add to the flames”
― Aimee Herman, Meant to Wake Up Feeling

“if breasts were detachable, would you leave them behind”
― Aimee Herman, Meant to Wake Up Feeling

“It is never really about what you are striving to get or achieve. It’s the journey.”
― Aimee Herman, Everything Grows

“When they need to mourn longer, collect nests and sew one big enough for them to weep in.”
― Aimee Herman, Meant to Wake Up Feeling

“I am in-between the sentence-structure of my body”
― Aimee Herman, Meant to Wake Up Feeling

“masculinity is double-jointed and vegetarian. masculinity is sleep-deprived and well-traveled and an immigrant and a soldier”
― Aimee Herman, Meant to Wake Up Feeling

“When they want to know about your latest relationship, tell them the moon didn't return your phone call last night, but you are hopeful.”
― Aimee Herman, Meant to Wake Up Feeling

“collapse teeth into body as though mouth is a ballerina
plié over and over into and in”
― Aimee Herman, Meant to Wake Up Feeling

“check other when offered choice of
female
or
male”
― Aimee Herman, Meant to Wake Up Feeling

“Everything that came before today is a rorshach'd survival stain. That is, memories are like lovers; they never really leave us.”
― Aimee Herman, Meant to Wake Up Feeling

“And then I remember Aunt Wenda saying, “Well, isn’t this just like life. Feels like it’s all together, but there is always, always something missing. Something amiss.”
― Aimee Herman, Everything Grows

“You are finding your colors
Your wings are expanding
Don’t be afraid of your butterfly
Your flight is the best part of living”
― Aimee Herman, Everything Grows

“Dear god,
Every time I take my clothes off, I stop believing in you.”
― Aimee Herman, Meant to Wake Up Feeling

“You didn't even notice I scratched away my
hips and climbed skin out of my collarbone so you can hang there. Aren't you homeless. Don't you want to burrow your germs into my gender to see what mutated cells we can create?”
― Aimee Herman, Meant to Wake Up Feeling

“Call body a stoop sale. There may be a need to discount limbs. Half price on the parts no longer in use and what happens when skin forgets its cause.”
― Aimee Herman, Meant to Wake Up Feeling

“Sometimes school feels like a rerun of a canceled television show. We see the same people in the same mint green hallways wearing the same outfits having the same conversations. It’s not that nothing happens, it’s just that we so quickly forget what came before all this.”
― Aimee Herman, Everything Grows

“masculinity is aromatic and may be derived from flattening or freshly-shaved haircut. it is sexy in the way that it touches and the way that it questions and the way that it challenges who can house it.”
― Aimee Herman, Meant to Wake Up Feeling

“give up on monogamy with another and begin solitary love affair with brain”
― Aimee Herman, Meant to Wake Up Feeling

“If there is such a thing as the business of sadness, what is its 401K plan or how to succeed without really trying.”
― Aimee Herman, Meant to Wake Up Feeling

“For cause of disturbance to bottom half of body, see page 143.”
― Aimee Herman, Meant to Wake Up Feeling

“Pasts are like bones. They grow and rip shards of internal bruising from within.”
― Aimee Herman, Meant to Wake Up Feeling