Steph (starrysteph)

“my cancer saved me, because did you know it is actually really so fucking terrifying being invested in living?”
― Walela Nehanda, Bless the Blood: A Cancer Memoir

“I’ve thought long and hard about how to tell you this story. If I gave you the truth – about me and my sister, the house and the cold and the hunger – you’d know, but you wouldn’t understand … Every detail that didn’t match your own life would become another sandbag against your fear. When you felt safe enough, different enough, exceptional enough, you would forget.”
― Maria Dong, Aviary

“Ah, but that's the thing about the Yahad and hope. We have always had to have it. I think we are more used to hanging on to it than many are led to believe. To be a Yahad and practice our religion is inherently hopeful, that one day, our people will be free.”
― Maddie Martinez, The Maiden and Her Monster

“For the first time in my life, I found mirrors for myself. Daphne, and now him. It's bizarre to witness these parts of myself - whatever they are, for if they have names, I don't know them - separated. I tied them together in my mind, as if my inability to grasp the intricacies of other people means I failed to also grasp the meeting of my sex at a basic level; as if one thing caused the other. Headmaster seems to think they're one and the same. Mother and Father do too. To see them divided disproves that.”
― Andrew Joseph White, The Spirit Bares Its Teeth