Kir

“Cyrus, for months, every song I've listened to has been directly about me. About my life. And my stupid fucking life with you. Every flower has been blooming straight into my fucking face. Do you know what that is? It's like being insane. Like the fucking pigeons are speaking to me. Have you ever felt that? Do you have any idea what I'm even talking about?”
― Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!

“Love was a room that appeared when you stepped into it.”
― Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!

“The story pretends to be about names but it’s actually a story about time, how time flattens everything. Family, duty, whatever. Into dirt. There’s something comforting about that, something vast and, yes, inescapable. Like bright ink spilling over everyone at once.”
― Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!

“Then imagine,” Kareem said, “that a bunch of people who’d never met you, for whom you’re just a myth, began sending you the art you loved, or the art they loved, the art they thought you might love too. An old woman sending a bunch of old standards. Or an eight-year-old boy sending you his prized Monkees record. Imagine how that might contribute to your sense of amongness. To your sense of earth maybe actually being the right place for you.”
― Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!