I have always been disturbed by this transition, by the reality that often the only way to capture someone’s attention and to encourage them to recognize their own internal biases (and to work to alter them) is to confront them with sensational stories of suffering. Why is my humanity only seen or cared about when I share the ways in which I have been victimized and violated? (Vivek Shreya - I'm Afraid of Men)
“If you are silent about your pain, they'll kill you and say you enjoyed it.” (Zora Neale Hurston, Quoted in Carmen Maria Machado - In the Dream House)
"[...] what we call ‘love’ is actually letting your identity fill in around the shape of the other person—you love someone by defining yourself against them. It says loss hurts because there’s nothing holding that part of you in place anymore. But your outline still holds, and it keeps holding. The thing you shaped yourself into by loving them, you never stop being that. The marks are permanent, so the idea of the person you loved is permanent, too." (Micah Nemerever - These Violent Delights)
"He loves me, he loves me not, we are taught to say, as we tear the flower away from its flowerness. To arrive at love, then, is to arrive through obliteration. Eviscerate me, we mean to say, and I’ll tell you the truth." (Ocean Vuong - On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous)
"SO ANYWAY, AFTER I SAID IT, and shoots, it was like the words came out and at the same time went in. Went down into me and chewed on everything inside as if I had somehow swallowed my own teeth and they were sharper than I'd ever known." (Jason Reynolds - Long Way Down)