Swasti

“What does he know of the half-starved wretches toiling from dawn till dark on the plantations? of mothers shrieking for their children, torn from their arms by slave traders? of young girls dragged down into moral filth? of pools of blood around the whipping post? of hounds trained to tear human flesh?”
― Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“I recognized the poem from Maulana Rumi and felt touched to the depths of my heart when I realized that Pari was committing both of us to God’s care. “I will never abandon you. You are the star that I follow always.” Pari’s eyes misted. “Yes,” she said softly, “you alone of all my servants have truly loved me.” “With all my heart.”
― Anita Amirrezvani, Equal of the Sun

“I don’t have royal blood,” I told her, “but we two could have been twins. It was as if we swam in the same fluids in our mother ’s womb, so that some of my maleness became hers and some of her femaleness mine. That made us strange in the eyes of the world, which does not care for in-between beings. We have both taken blows because of it. She was protean, as am I. She was fierce and affectionate and smart and unpredictable. That is why I loved her . . . that is why!”
― Anita Amirrezvani, Equal of the Sun

“I had found someone to love, to pour my heart into, someone I felt frightened of, and I was seeking to be loved the only way I knew how: by disappearing.”
― Sally Field, In Pieces