Sharon Boyd

“We cannot think another’s thoughts, but we can feel their pain. Also, their pleasure, but we focus on pain because pain threatens us. We turn our eyes and block our ears and pretend it is not ours to feel. We let our brains rule our bodies. Our brains tell us we cannot withstand all the feeling, that our bodies are not capable. But we have forgotten—I have forgotten—that we heal, not through logic, not through the brain, but through discharging energy. When we have a fever, we sweat and have fever dreams that make us writhe and cry out. When we eat something rotten, we heave and vomit and shit liquid. We absorb pain and anger through the body, and we must expel it through the body, like a virus, like rot. Can I lick myself clean? Can I scale my skin? Can I molt?”
― Nadia Owusu, Aftershocks

“He’s on a speedboat, headed straight for dry land. I’m floating on a breeze with no direction at all.”
― Sara Cate, Keep Me

“I’ll never be who I once was, and I don’t want to. So it’s time for me to rebuild a version of me I can love. So that someday, someone else can love me too.”
― Sloane St. James, Fight

“True love isn’t the same as love at first sight. It’s not your first love. It’s the one you can stand with in a storm. It’s having them see everything you lack and hearing you’re worthy. It’s fighting for them when they don’t know how. It’s the one who lights the darkest parts of your soul on fire so life can bloom again. It’s hearing those three words and truly understanding their meaning.”
― Sloane St. James, Fight