Kay

“But if I were honest, or if I were at least to bump into the limits of my honesty, I would have to admit that I knew exactly how this love would end from the moment it began. The loss was probably before it was possible.”
― Maggie Nelson, The Red Parts

“Mostly I have felt myself becoming a servant of sadness. I am still looking for the beauty in that.”
― Maggie Nelson, Bluets

“199. For to wish to forget how much you loved someone—and then, to actually forget—can feel, at times, like the slaughter of a beautiful bird who chose, by nothing short of grace, to make a habitat of your heart.”
― Maggie Nelson, Bluets

“She could feel the coolness, a whole childhood of it, falling through her. Rain on the coral beach in Galway. White tennis balls on the broken court. Her brother at his shortwave radio. A nest of wires and voices. Her father's cattle huddled on a laneway. The broken church bell. A grass verge of green in the laneway. High windows. Too tall for the school chairs. The milk came in small silver cans. She would not cry or whimper. She had always refused him that.”
― Colum McCann, Thirteen Ways of Looking