Pewterbreath

“Each night he must
be carried through artificial tunnels and dream recurrent dreams.
Just as the ties recur beneath his train, these underlie
his rushing brain. He does not dare look out the window,
for the third rail, the unbroken draught of poison,
runs there beside him. He regards it as a disease
he has inherited the susceptibility to. He has to keep
his hands in his pockets, as others must wear mufflers.”
― Elizabeth Bishop, The Complete Poems 1927-1979

“I have this idea that every time we discover that the names we're being called are somehow keeping us less than free, we need to come up with new names for ourselves, and that the names we give ourselves must no longer reflect a fear of being labeled outsiders, must no longer bind us to a system that would rather see us dead.”
― Kate Bornstein, Hello Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks & Other Outlaws

“Well I know Gyuri [the familiar diminutive of Georg or György], that human beings are unapproachable, that their souls are as far from each other as stars; only the remote radiance reaches to the other. I know that human beings are surrounded by dark, great seas, and thus they look across to one another, yearning but never reaching one another”
― Georg Lukács, Record of a Life: An Autobiographical Sketch

“If we eliminate the pressure to pass, what delicious and devastating opportunities for transformation might we create?”
― Matt Bernstein Sycamore, Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity