Emily

“The carpet is a thin veil meant to make the harsh metal look like something soft and welcoming, rather than the monstrosity it would be in its natural state. It takes so little to trick the eyes, but I am lying on the thin deception, and the cold, unmalleable frame is bleeding into me until I start to shiver.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, Cherish Farrah

“I wonder about others like me, who seem totally fine on the outside but are rotting on the inside, where the rot is this vague state of being not-fine and not-devastated at the same time.”
― Baek Se-hee, I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki

“Unkindness is a serial killer.
Death in the flesh sometimes seems like a less excruciating way to succumb than the slow and steady venom unleashed by mean-spirited, cruel words and actions that poison you over time. I guess that’s why I can’t stand the old children’s rhyme: sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. Every time I hear it, I think to myself: that’s a lie. You can dodge a rock, but you can’t unhear a word. You can’t undo the intentional damage that some words have on your mind, body, and spirit.
Especially a word like ugly.”
― Tarana Burke, Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement

“These days, I’m happy to report, I don’t have to work so hard. I’ve come to accept that my version of love is a mosaic: tiny pieces of broken glass held together by fate so the light can shine through in different colors. It is not perfect. Perfect, I’m afraid, is far too tame. The purest love is not born from bliss. It is pulled from the pyre. It is fierce and shape-shifted, slightly twisted and delicious. Accepting, forgiving, understanding, and relatably flawed, my type of love is the furthest thing from perfect. The closest thing to me.”
― Patric Gagne, Sociopath