robyn

“—Help these boys build a nation their own. Ransack the histories for clues to their past. Plunder the literatures for words they can speak. And should you encounter an ancient tribe whose customs, however dimly, cast light on their hearts, tell them that tale; and you shall name the unspeakable names of your kind, and in that naming, in each such telling, they will falter a step to the light.
"—For only with pride may a man prosper. With pride, all things follow. Without he have pride he is a shadowy skulk whose season is night. ”
― Jamie O'Neill, At Swim, Two Boys

“An intention in your life to fold your life around.
I stood tall and strong and let him fall. His face against my chest. I reached down, put my arms under his knees, his legs dangled over my arm. One big heft, and I was holding George high in my arms.
There was nowhere to go, no place I knew, no solid, silent place in all the world. So I stood, held George, knotty pine everywhere I looked, men staring. Just stood. Put that solid, silent place in the world inside me and stood.
Stood and stood, held George, held his whole body, until he was quiet.”
― Tom Spanbauer, Now Is the Hour

“You fainted and I caught you. It was the first time I'd supported a human. You had such heavy bones. I put myself between you and gravity. Impossible.”
― Elizabeth Knox, The Vintner's Luck

“What Jack remembered and craved in a way he could neither help nor understand was the time that distant summer on Brokeback when Ennis had come up behind him and pulled him close, the silent embrace satisfying some shared and sexless hunger. They had stood that way for a long time in front of the fire, its burning tossing ruddy chunks of light, the shadow of their bodies a single column against the rock. The minutes ticked by from the round watch in Ennis's pocket, from the sticks in the fire settling into coals. Stars bit through the wavy heat layers above the fire. Ennis's breath came slow and quiet, he hummed, rocked a little in the sparklight and Jack leaned against the steady heartbeat, the vibrations of the humming like faint electricity and, standing, he fell into sleep that was not sleep but something else drowsy and tranced until Ennis, dredging up a rusty but still useable phrase from the childhood time before his mother died, said, "Time to hit the hay, cowboy. I got a go. Come on, you're sleepin on your feet like a horse," and gave Jack a shake, a push, and went off in the darkness. Jack heard his spurs tremble as he mounted, the words "see you tomorrow," and the horse's shuddering snort, grind of hoof on stone. Later, that dozy embrace solidified in his memory as the single moment of artless, charmed happiness in their separate and difficult lives. Nothing marred it, even the knowledge that Ennis would not then embrace him face to face because he did not want to see nor feel that it was Jack he held. And maybe, he thought, they'd never get much farther that that. Let be, let be.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain