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“And when you have waited—has it made you sure?”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

“Sometimes the extract is not an erasure,
But an expansion.
It is not a cut, but a culmination.
Not a gash, but a growth.

Life has taken the suffix -ship, made it a verb,
Taken a sound
& given it momentum.

That's what only words can do --
Prod us toward something new
& in doing so, move us closer -> together

Perhaps our relationships are the very make of
us,
For fellowship is both our nature & our
necessity.
We are formed primarily by what we imagine.”
― Amanda Gorman, Call Us What We Carry

“He had lived lifetimes inside Hana, and when exhaustion overwhelmed desire, he dissolved, happily, in her embrace.”
― Samantha Sotto Yambao, Water Moon

“Sometimes the extract is not an erasure,
But an expansion.
It is not a cut, but a culmination.
Not a gash, but a growth.”
― Amanda Gorman, Call Us What We Carry