polly

“I had always thought life was a road, twisting and turning with the vagaries of fate. Luck and opportunity, gifts beyond our control. As I gazed across the endless night, it dawned on me then, that our paths were forged from the choices we made. Whether to reach for an opportunity or to let it pass by. To be swept up with changed or to hold your ground.”
― Sue Lynn Tan, Daughter of the Moon Goddess

“Name one hero who was happy."
I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back.
"You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward.
"I can't."
"I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret."
"Tell me." I loved it when he was like this.
"I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it."
"Why me?"
"Because you're the reason. Swear it."
"I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes.
"I swear it," he echoed.
We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned.
"I feel like I could eat the world raw.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“My battered heart will always be
where the ocean meets the sand, I
will break over and over

Every day. That is the best and
worst part of me.”
― Clementine von Radics

“Now, you have opened the box and left it unguarded in the night. You have both placed faith in the other that you will wake up intact. You have acted on a feeling. You are in a memory of the present. You are tumbling through a fever dream, surfacing only to plunge once more.”
― Caleb Azumah Nelson, Open Water