Kristi Marshae

“We are nothing without our quick and simple blessings, without those willing to drag optimism by its neck to the gates of grief and ask to be let in, an entire choir of voices singing at their back.”
― Hanif Abdurraqib, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us: Essays

“The default assumption tends to be that it is politically important to designate everyone as beautiful, that it is a meaningful project to make sure that everyone can become, and feel, increasingly beautiful. We have hardly tried to imagine what it might look like if our culture could do the opposite—de-escalate the situation, make beauty matter less.”
― Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion

“But, in a way, that sense of death being present, and all those wild, traumatized feelings that went with it, ultimately gave us this weird, urgent energy. Not at first, but in time. It was an energy that allowed us to do anything we wanted to do. Ultimately, it opened up all kinds of possibilities and a strange reckless power came out of it. It was as if the worst had happened and nothing could hurt us, and all our ordinary concerns were little more than indulgences. There was a freedom in that.”
― Nick Cave, Faith, Hope and Carnage

“No one decides when the people we love are actually gone. May we all be buried on our own terms.”
― Hanif Abdurraqib, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us: Essays