olivia

“Side by side they are twin angels on a headstone, cold and terrible and immutable. They were boys once, he remembers, but they aren't anymore.”
― Micah Nemerever, These Violent Delights

“Why, the angel asked, have you done this? Why does God divine punish and divine hurt, divine ache? There is a wound, shaped like God, in me. If there is any mercy in you, why did you create me, only to cast me out?”
― rafael nicolás, Angels & Man

“He wanted to forget he'd ever yielded to the weakness of wanting anything. He wanted to scrub away any evidence that he existed outside his own head at all—that he was a visible object that anyone else could see and mock and judge.”
― Micah Nemerever, These Violent Delights

“I know you loved us all, in your own way. Magdalena for her brilliance, Alexi for his loveliness. But I was your war bride, your faithful Constanta, and you loved me for my will to survive. You coaxed that tenacity out of me and broke it down in your hands, leaving me on your work table like a desiccated doll until you were ready to repair me. You filled me with your loving guidance, stitched up my seams with thread in your favorite color, taught me how to walk and talk and smile in whatever way pleased you best. I was so happy to be your marionette, at first. So happy to be chosen.”
― S.T. Gibson, A Dowry of Blood