Alena

“But if you feel the need to trust language again, to remember that language could have power, could hold multiple truths, then you need poetry. If you need to be reminded of what makes us human, tender, brave, flawed, and worthy of love, then you need poetry.”
― Ada Limon, Against Breaking: On the Power of Poetry

“Friends are like oxygen. If you’ve been blessed enough to have always been surrounded by friends, you might think I’m overplaying this. I don’t blame you. If you’d always been surrounded by air, you wouldn’t think to credit it for your very existence either. But I’ve spent much of my life gasping for breath, so I promise you, it’s true. Friends are like oxygen.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“He feels relatively safe here, though he is aware as he walks the circumference of the carnival that he is also pacing along the wall of a zoo's enclosure. Protected and yet trapped. Included and collected.”
― Dan Chaon, One of Us

“Tears
The crystal rags
Viscous tatters
of a worn-through soul”
― Maya Angelou