David Clasky

“When you come out of the grips of a depression there is an incredible relief, but not one you feel allowed to celebrate. Instead, the feeling of victory is replaced with anxiety that it will happen again, and with shame and vulnerability when you see how your illness affected your family, your work, everything left untouched while you struggled to survive. We come back to life thinner, paler, weaker … but as survivors. Survivors who don’t get pats on the back from coworkers who congratulate them on making it. Survivors who wake to more work than before because their friends and family are exhausted from helping them fight a battle they may not even understand. I hope to one day see a sea of people all wearing silver ribbons as a sign that they understand the secret battle, and as a celebration of the victories made each day as we individually pull ourselves up out of our foxholes to see our scars heal, and to remember what the sun looks like.”
― Jenny Lawson, Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things

“you ask to touch my hair. or worse touch it without asking. this is not innocence. this is not ignorance. this is not curiosity. this is the very racist and subhuman belief that you have a right to me. – i will break your hand | do not ever touch me |every time you touch me. my ancestors place a curse on you”
― Nayyirah Waheed, salt.

“men give birth, too. to children. to longings. to dreams. that they must hide. their stomachs. their uteruses. their hungers. their softness. their cravings for touch. to be a man. is the thing that closes their light. and eats their eyes. – him”
― Nayyirah Waheed, salt.

“you are a story. do not become a word. one word. because you want to be loved. love does not ask you to be nothing for something.”
― Nayyirah Waheed, salt.