xy | silas

“[...]Like that. Yes. You’re doing it well.” He said the words he wished his Father had told him. “I’m very proud of you.” And though his voice shook, her smile made him surer of his decision than all else. ‘God will never love me again.’ He pulled her close and kissed her forehead. ‘But I won’t miss His love. I won’t miss Him.’ It was a lie, but he had been lying to himself for so long, had been a sinner all along. ‘I’ll learn to believe it.”
― Rafael Nicolás, Angels & Man

“Actually," she says, releasing his hand, "you do. I think you want to be you more than anything. You want to be the person you could have been without all the bullshit, yes?" He's frowning but he's receptive. "That's what I wanted, too. And that's what I eventually became. But it takes time, and it takes work - even the 'drag them into girlhood kicking and screaming' method requires something of you eventually - and more than anything else it takes understanding yourself. Picking out the parts of yourself that are real and not just more of the bullshit. Think of this as another shot at adolescence. It actually is, in many ways, since the basement can be a lot like a very small residential school and your body really is going through a whole lot of changes. Your first adolescence wasn't quick, was it? And was it easy? No. You're growing up all over again, as someone kinda new and kinda not, and you can't rush these things.”
― Alyson Greaves

“Like the monster, the longer I live in these conditions, the more rage I harbor. Rage colors me as it presses in through the pores of my skin, soaking in until it becomes the blood that courses through my beating heart. It is a rage bred by the necessity of existing in external circumstances that work against my survival.”
― Susan Stryker, My Words to Victor Frankenstein above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage

“What do I do with all this pain? Where do I place it? If I cannot give it to God, then who do I give it to? If I don’t get it out of me, then it will kill me.” ‘But I want to die, don’t I?’
Samyaza took his cheeks, held them. “You don’t want to die.”
“I do.”
“No, you don’t.” Samyaza’s thumb dragged along to catch one of Azazel’s tears. “You want this pain in you to die.”
“I’m all pain now.”
― Rafael Nicolás, Angels & Man