Alex

“despite knowing
they won’t be here for long
they still choose to live
their brightest lives

- sunflowers”
― Rupi Kaur, The Sun and Her Flowers

“you left
and i wanted you still
yet i deserved someone
who was willing to stay”
― Rupi Kaur, The Sun and Her Flowers

“In America the gay world touched my life at the margins, though references and images and occasional conversations with men and women who celebrated their homosexuality with pride. As far as I could see there was nothing to be proud about. There was only pain, humiliation and shame. If I were to join this group, I would have to act proud and hide my feelings of rejection and loneliness. If I were to show these men and women that I was terrified for my future, I would be regarded as misguided or a victim of Islam or Arabness. But if there was one thing I wsa certain of it was that there was nothing misguided about my feelings, and I did not feel that Islam or my Arabness was to blame. If I were to join this group, I would simply go from the repressiveness of secrecy to the repressiveness of pride. I didn't despise my shame. I had no reason to do so. My shame illuminated my intense attachment to the world, my desire to be connected with others.”
― Saleem Haddad, Guapa

“One has to go into relationships with equal expectations, ready to give as much as the other - not with one person wanting a fling and the other real love...”
― Alain de Botton, Essays In Love