KADEN

“Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“When they invented the car they invented the collision and the darkness of what time leads the willing body to do.”
― David Wojnarowicz, Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration

“The first time I found my brother
overdosed, he looked holy. A thing
not to be touched. Yellow halo of last
night's dinner. His skin, blanched blue
fresco: Patron Saint of Smack. A Cop,
flustered, tugged up his shorts, plunged
a needle into his pale thigh. He hissed
awake like a soda can. The paramedic
spoke slowly in his ear like a lover,
asked him what color yellow and red
make. What is the difference between
a lake and a river? In the corner I
whittle my brother's used syringe
into an instrument only I can play.”
― Steven Espada Dawson

“Birth lasts longer than death. In Palestine death is sudden, instant, constant, happens in between breaths.”
― Mohammed El-Kurd, Rifqa