Martha

“I wanted to stay empty, like the eagle in the proverb, left to perch, my bones filled with air pockets, but heaviness found me and I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t shake it off; I couldn’t transform it, evaporate or melt it. It was distinct from me, but it hooked itself into my body like a parasite. I couldn’t figure out if something was wrong with me or if this was just my life—if this was just how people felt, like concrete was dragging their flesh off their bones.”
― Akwaeke Emezi, The Death of Vivek Oji

“Fresh starts were good; that separateness was where you could feel yourself, where you could learn who you were apart from everyone else.”
― Akwaeke Emezi, The Death of Vivek Oji

“I was drowning. Not quickly, not enough for panic, but a slow and inexorable sinking, when you know where you’re going to end up, so you stop fighting and you wait for it to all be over.”
― Akwaeke Emezi, The Death of Vivek Oji

“Leaving home was the hardest thing I ever did, but I needed to see who I might be, apart from a dutiful daughter and devoted sister. My high school years had been rough, and I was eager to reinvent myself as someone new, to build the life for myself I’d always dreamed of. I feel the weight now, the cost of wandering too far away from home. Of wanting too much.”
― Julie Clark, The Last Flight