Darby High

“Was this me now, for life? Taking up space where people wished I wasn't? Once on a time I was something, and then I turned, like sour milk. The dead junkie's kid. A rotten little piece of American pie that everybody wishes could just be, you know. Removed.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead

“I was born to wish for more than I can have. No little fishing hole for Demon, he wants the whole ocean. And on from there, as regards the man-overboard. I came late to getting my brain around the problem of me, and still yet might not have. The telling of this tale is supposed to make it come clear. It's a disease, a lot of people you tell you that now, be they the crushed souls under repair at NA meetings or the doctors in buttoned-up sweaters. Fair enough. But where did it come from, this wanting disease? From how I got born, or the ones that made me, or the crowd I ran with later? Everybody warns about bad influences, but it's these things already inside you that are going to take you down. The restlessness in your gut, like tomcat's gone stupid with their blood feeds, prowling around in the moon - dead dark. The hopless wishes that won't quit stalking you: some perfect words you think you could say to somebody to make them see you, and love you, and stay. Or could say to your mirror, same reason.
Some people never want like that, no reaching for the bottle, the needle, the dangerous pretty face, all the wrong stars. What words can I write here for those eyes to see and believe? For the lucky, it's simple. Like the song says, This Little Light Of mine. Don't let Satan blow it out. Look farther down the pipe, see what's coming. Ignore the damn tomcats. Quit the dope.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead

“I had a list going in my head that fall, of what all I would tell my little brother one day. But time passed and eventually my mind had only one thought in it as regards childhood. For any kid that gets that as an option: take that sweet thing and run with it. Hide. Love it so hard. Because it's going to fucking leave you and not come back.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead

“There're always more truths than one. Knowing who I am, or thinking I might know? That's only half a truth. Because my identity will always be halfway informed by the world. It has to be informed by something. Usually we define ourselves by loving things, Doc Martens or Shakespeare or music or whatever. But if the things we love are other people, those people define us. And then they're a part of you, and they change what you know about yourself.”
― Leah Thomas, Wild and Crooked