Zainab Alkurmanji

“Always to live among words, whether one wants to or not,
always to be alive, full of words about life,
as if words were alive, as if life meant words.

But it’s otherwise, believe me.
Between a word and a thing
you only encounter yourself,
lying between each as if next to someone ill,
never able to get to either,
tasting a sound and a body,
and relishing both.

It tastes of death.

—Ingeborg Bachmann, from “Always to live among words,” Darkness Spoken: The Collected Poems . Translated by Peter Filkins. Forward by Charles Simic. (Zephyr Press; Bilingual edition October 1, 2005)”
― Ingeborg Bachmann, Darkness Spoken: The Collected Poems of Ingeborg Bachmann

“who uses black towels, anyway? Who produces them? Where does he even buy them, Bloodbath and Beyond?”
― Ali Hazelwood, Under One Roof

“He doesn’t really acknowledge my existence. Well, except to occasionally stare like I’m some roach infesting his pristine living space.”
― Ali Hazelwood, Under One Roof

“I’m going to kill you,” he gritted out, little more than a growl. “If you say
another word about the woman I love, if you look at her, if you even think about
her—I’m going to fucking kill you.”
― Ali Hazelwood, The Love Hypothesis