Martha

“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

“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

“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

“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