Liser19

“I was tired of being your Magdalene. I was tired of waiting expectantly at your tomb every night for you to rise and bring light into my world once again. I was tired of groveling on my knees and washing blood off your heels with my hair and tears. I was tired of having the air sucked out of my lungs every time your eyes cut right to the heart of me. I was tired of the circumference of the whole universe living in your circled arms, of the spark of life hiding in your kiss, of the power of death lying in wait in your teeth. I was tired of carrying around the weight of a love like worship, of the sickly-warm rush of idolatry coloring my whole world. I was tired of faithfulness. I made you into my private Christ, supplicated with my own dark devotions. Nothing existed beyond the range of your exacting gaze, not even me. I was simply a none-entity when you weren't looking at me, an empty vessel waiting to be filled by the sweet water of your attention. A woman can't live like that, my lord. No one can. Don't ask me why I did it. God, forgive me. Christ, forgive me.”
― S.T. Gibson, A Dowry of Blood

“Because to really integrate into a culture, I can tell you that you have to disintegrate first, at least partially, from your own. You have to separate, detach, disassociate. No one who demands that immigrants make “an effort at integration” would dare look them in the face and ask them to start by making the necessary “effort at disintegration.” They’re asking people to stand atop the mountain without climbing up it first.”
― Négar Djavadi, Disoriental

“It was telling that he had taken responsibility for the thing that he did...but he did not mention the things done in his name. This was always the way of these strongmen. They would craft the fear so carefully and then toss it into the world for everyone to use. And when someone took that fear and destroyed with it, they were just "unstable" or "mentally ill".”
― Hank Green, A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor

“Here’s what I’d learned about the Dutch: each person is free to be who they are, to want what they want, to live how they choose, on the condition that it doesn’t harm the well-being of anyone else, or the general equilibrium. It’s a philosophy of life that’s the exact opposite of Persian culture, where erecting barriers, getting involved in other people’s lives, and breaking the law is as natural as breathing. But it’s also unlike the Judeo-Christian rigidity of French culture,”
― Négar Djavadi, Disoriental