Steven Rowley

“At first, his charisma made it addictive to be around him; but over time I recognized it was also a façade. There was a wounded boy inside of him. He had grown up without a dad, so it made sense to me that he sought constant validation. I found it endearing, humanizing; until he started to indulge that little boy. There were tantrums, there was acting out, there was his need to control things that he no business controlling, but he was still that boy, and I loved him.



So I stayed thinking it would get better, and then one morning I woke up to one of life’s clarion calls. I deserved better than this. That night I said I was leaving.”
― Steven Rowley, Lily and the Octopus

“I think about all the people I need to forgive.
My mother for not saying she loves me? We're too often guilty of thinking that our parents arrived on this planet as fully functioning adults on the day that we were born. That they don't have pasts of their own prior to our birth. That the father is not also a son, that the mother is not also a child. My mother had a tough beginning, enduring things I know little about. And yet I more often discount her pain and overvalue mine.”
― Steven Rowley