Vanitas

“You once told me that the human eye is god's loneliest creation. How so much of the world passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing. The eye, alone in its socket, doesn't even know there's another one, just like it, an inch away, just as hungry, as empty.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“Because the sunset, like survival, exists only on the verge of its own disappearing. To be gorgeous, you must first be seen, but to be seen allows you to be hunted.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“I don’t know how to hold this truth,
so I kill it, pin its terrible wings down
in case, later, no one believes me.”
― Ada Limon, The Carrying

“My mother said I could be anything I wanted - but I chose to live.”
― Ocean Vuong, Night Sky with Exit Wounds