avan

“The blond boy in the red trunks is holding your head underwater because he is trying to kill you, and you deserve it, you do, and you know this, and you are ready to die in this swimming pool because you wanted to touch his hands and lips and this means your life is over anyway. You’re in eighth grade. You know these things. You know how to ride a dirt bike, and you know how to do long division, and you know that a boy who likes boys is a dead boy, unless he keeps his mouth shut, which is what you didn't do, because you are weak and hollow and it doesn't matter anymore.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself,
Counting this row and that row of moccasins
Waiting on the silent shelf.”
― Anne Sexton

“if Moses had seen the way my friend’s face blushes when he’s drunk, and his beautiful curls and wonderful hands, he would not have written in his Torah: do not lie with a man”
― Judah Alharizi, The Book of Tahkemoni: Jewish Tales from Medieval Spain

“Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.”
― Maya Angelou