Lesser Than a Lester

“What if art was not measured by quantity but ricochets? What if art was not measured?”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“They say if you want something bad enough you’ll end up making a god out of it. But what if all I ever wanted was my life, Ma?”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“What if my sadness is actually my most brutal teacher? And the lesson is always this: You don’t have to be like the buffaloes. You can stop.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“There are times, late at night, when your son would wake believing a bullet is lodged inside him. He’d feel it floating on the right side of his chest, just between the ribs. The bullet was always here, the boy thinks, older even than himself—and his bones, tendons, and veins had merely wrapped around the metal shard, sealing it inside him. It wasn’t me, the boy thinks, who was inside my mother’s womb, but this bullet, this seed I bloomed around. Even now, as the cold creeps in around him, he feels it poking out from his chest, slightly tenting his sweater. He feels for the protrusion but, as usual, finds nothing. It’s receded, he thinks. It wants to stay inside me. It is nothing without me. Because a bullet without a body is a song without ears.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous