gabi

“You wonder if, at any point in history, some creature scuttled over what would, eons later, be the living room, and cocked its head to the side to listen to the faintest of sounds: yelling, weeping. Ghosts of a future that hadn't happened yet.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“A tall Black woman, a senior that year, peered at us all as she spoke evenly, almost disarmingly in the heat of the moment. “I just want to say that I’m having a hard time even being mad at you white people anymore. I think I’ve just been convinced that white people are innately evil. You can’t help it. You steal and kill, you enslave and lynch. You are just evil.” Then she handed the microphone back to the next person and calmly took her seat. The white students hadn’t appreciated her words, but the Black students on the bus could have kissed her feet.”
― Austin Channing Brown, I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

“I remember watching her "put her face on," as she called it, and wondering if one day I'd be like her, a beautiful fish in a man-made pool, circling and circling, surviving the tedium only because my memory can contain only what is imprinted on the last few minutes of my life, constantly forgetting my thoughts.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation

“My parents stare straight ahead, their anger and grief palpable enough to taste. I open my mouth to let it all in and swallow it whole, where deep in my belly it turns into blame.”
― Kate Elizabeth Russell, My Dark Vanessa