Hazel Rodriguez

“And I do. I do wonder, I think about it all the time. What it would be like to kill myself. Because I never really know, I still can't tell the difference, I'm never quite certain whether or not I'm actually alive. I sit here every single day. Run, I said to myself. Run until your lungs collapse, until the wind whips and snaps at your tattered clothes, until you're a blur that blends into the background.

Run, Juliette, run faster, run until your bones break and your shins split and your muscles atrophy and your heart dies because it was always too big for your chest and it beat too fast for too long and you run.

Run run run until you can't hear their feet behind you. Run until they drop their fists and their shouts dissolve in the air. Run with your eyes open and your mouth shut and dam the river rushing up behind your eyes. Run, Juliette.

Run until you drop dead. Make sure your heart stops before they ever reach you. Before they ever touch you.

Run, I said.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“The soldiers stomp stomp stomp through the rain, crushing leaves and fallen snow under their feet. Their hands are wrapped in gloves wrapped around guns that could put a bullet through a million possibilities.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“His eyes are the perfect shade of cobalt, blue like a blossoming bruise, clear and deep and decided.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“I practice using my voice, shaping my lips around the familiar words unfamiliar to my mouth.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me