Tia

“There is an important difference between openness and naïveté. Not everyone has good intentions nor means me well. I remind myself I do not need to change these people, only recognize who they are.”
― Audre Lorde

“Some of the spit dripped from my daddy’s face onto that white man’s shoes. He told my daddy to clean it. I said, ‘Don’t do it, Daddy. He spit in your face.’” Tommy lowered his head as his tears fell to the ground. “That man called him ‘boy,’ but my daddy called him ‘mister’ as he bent down and cleaned the man’s shoes.” His head lifted, eyes full of the injustice of the world, as he bitterly said, “And I have never looked at my dad the same since.”
― Vanessa Miller, The Filling Station

“My little Hettie, now Her Ladyship. Don’t think I’ll ever get over it. She wants for nothing.’ Nothing at all, Anne said to herself. Nothing but passion or love or, as far as could be seen, even the merest affection. Was that not the very definition of poverty? She did not begrudge Hettie the life, but nor could she envy it. In Henrietta – now Lady Caterham – Anne could see naught but an insentient beauty in a luxurious grave.”
― Gill Hornby, Godmersham Park

“Loving, worshipping, and bowing down to folks who harmed you was written into the genes of all animal creatures. To be alive meant to lust after connection, and better to have one with the enemy than with no one at all. A baby's fingers and mouth grasp on instinct.”
― Rivers Solomon, Sorrowland