Andie O

“And I remember this girl, blaming herself because she was the one who insisted that she and her family go to the sea that day. So she blamed herself: ‘I was the cause. I drove them to their death.’ Another incident was in 2014, when four children from the Bakr family were killed playing soccer on the beach. I think the ball was the only survivor of that game.”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

“Have you ever been in the air so long that your feet begin to fall in love with the new familiar, walking along some invisible surface that is surely there, that must be, as there is no other way to describe what miracle keeps you afloat? How long have you been suspended in a place that loves you with the same ferocity and freedom as the ground might, as the grave might, as a heaven that lets you walk in drowning in gold might?”
― Hanif Abdurraqib, There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension

“What you may learn is that there are places you can go where no one will pay attention to you if you don’t cause a fuss. Sink down into a big chair at the library for a few hours, and hold a book on your lap, and if you fall asleep, no one will be bold enough to wake you up. Spend a dollar or two at the McDonald’s and sit with a newspaper you swiped from the top of a trashcan, and that booth can be your booth for a little while. There is a way to blend into the architecture of a place, as long as you don’t summon any chaos while you do it. Walk through a park where the weight of summer has broken the necks of the sunflowers, sent their faces moaning near the soil they burst from, and imagine that even the flowers must try to make a deal with whoever their god is, hoping for a better result than their current predicament.”
― Hanif Abdurraqib, There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension

“unsure why any of us would pursue this. The anxiety of scrolling through our pasts, lightly, of course, so as not to trigger any dreaded accidental liking of a weeks-old photo (or even months-old, depending on exactly how down bad you might be).”
― Hanif Abdurraqib, There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension