Liser19

“I have become—as I’m sure everyone does who has left his or her country—someone else. Someone who has translated myself into other cultural codes. Firstly in order to survive, and then to go beyond survival and forge a future for myself. And since it is a generally acknowledged idea that something is lost in translation, it should come as no surprise that we unlearn—at least partially—what we used to be, to make room for what we have become.”
― Négar Djavadi, Disoriental

“Remember, be a good person, not a good girl. Good girls suffer a lot in this life.”
― Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, A Girl Is a Body of Water

“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

“didn’t know what the word lesbian meant; yet, by some strange alchemy, the second it dropped onto me, as dark as a drop of black ink into a glass of water, I felt it. It had something to do with how I acted, with who I was, and with shame.”
― Négar Djavadi, Disoriental