chlo ✰

“She's who he imagines calling first when he gets his letter from Princeton, the audience he pictures when he's collecting all the important and also the stupid insignificant parts of his day to give to someone? When he imagines disasters happening, cancer or nuclear fallout or the Big One we're supposed to get in California, at night when it's quiet and he feels all the weight of his own life pressing in on him, she's the lurch in his stomach and the hand he gropes around for in the dark?”
― Kelly Loy Gilbert, Picture Us in the Light

“From watching my parents I think being married or being with someone else in any kind of real way takes a certain amount of bravery, and it's not something I'm positive I have in me. To pluck your heart from your chest that way and hand it to someone, unprotected, and wait to see how gently they'll stitch it back in for you, or not--to wake up all those days you're the crappiest version of yourself and face the person who knows you best, morning after morning, year after year.”
― Kelly Loy Gilbert, Picture Us in the Light

“I can be feminine in all my rage.
I can be girl and woman, and claws with teeth.
Watch me burn.”
― Venetta Octavia

“or maybe we all just forgive the people we love, because we love them, and for no other reason than that.”
― Kelly Loy Gilbert, Picture Us in the Light