Debbie "DJ"

“Our backs tell stories
no books have the spine to carry”
― Rupi Kaur

“Emptiness felt like a living thing. A parasite growing in the center of your chest, somewhere behind your heart, taking every ounce of warmth and light and happiness and consuming it until there's nothing left. Emptiness feels like exhaustion, like there's no reason to fight, no reason to take another breath, no reason to try to survive. But emptiness also feels like freedom. Because it doesn't just take the good, it takes the bad, too--the anger, the bitterness, the pain--and when it's done, it leaves you with just you. A cold, shell-like echo of yourself, but still you.”
― Ava Jae, Beyond the Red

“I did not know the work of mourning
Is like carrying a bag of cement
Up a mountain at night

The mountaintop is not in sight
Because there is no mountaintop
Poor Sisyphus grief

I did not know I would struggle
Through a ragged underbrush
Without an upward path

...

Look closely and you will see
Almost everyone carrying bags
Of cement on their shoulders

That’s why it takes courage
To get out of bed in the morning
And climb into the day.”
― Edward Hirsch, Gabriel: A Poem

“The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests. The library was open, unending, free.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates