- 003 | "can't they see it's a corpse? a corpse should go away, not get stuck forever like that."
- 052 | one does not "pass" in america, it seems, without english.
- 063 | the nameless yellow body was not considered human because it did not fit in a slot on a piece of paper. sometimes you are erased before you are given the choice of stating who you are.
- 092 | again and again, i write to you regretting my tongue.
- 115 | afterward, lying next to me with his face turned away, he cried skillfully in the dark. the way boys do. the first time we fucked, we didn't fuck at all.
- 133 | we were exchanging truths, i realized, which is to say, we were cutting one another.
- 169 | i didn't know that would be the last time i'd see him, his neck scar lit by the diner's neon marquee. to see that little comma again, to put my mouth there, let my shadow widen the scar until, at last, there was no scar to be seen at all, just a vast and equal dark sealed by my lips. a comma superimposed by a period the mouth so naturally makes. isn't that the saddest thing in the world, ma? a comma forced to be a period?
- 175 | to look at something is to fill your whole life with it, if only briefly.
- 186 | i miss you more than i remember you.
- 192 | im sorry i keep saying how are you? when i really mean are you happy?
- 215 | you're rose, ma. you have risen.
- 240 | i know you believe in reincarnation. i don't know if i do but i hope it's real. because then you'll come back here next time around. maybe you'll be a girl and maybe your name will be rose again, and you'll have a room full of books with parents who will read you bedtime stories in a country not touched by war. maybe then, in that life and in this future, you'll find this book and you'll know what happened to us. and you'll remember me. maybe.
- 242 | without moving your head, you look at me, the way a mother looks at anything—for too long. then, for no reason, you start to laugh.
dec 8 2024 ∞
dec 8 2024 +