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“My mother was my first country. The first place I ever lived.” —“lands” by Nayyirah Waheed, poet and activist
Grief is its own kind of intimacy, a bond of sorts between you and the one you lost.
It was said perfectly, his sincere wish that things had been and could be different. It wasn’t condescending or defensive or any of the things people say when they aren’t sure what to do about pain they didn’t cause but feel connected to.
I think revolution requires a certain degree of hubris.” “Who said that?” I ask, racking my brain for a reference for the quote. “Oh, I did. Just now.” Well, impress the hell out of me.
If a kiss has a color, this one is the muted shades of the sky overhead, a ménage à trois of midnight and indigo and moonshine silver. If a kiss has a sound, this one is the concert of our breaths and sighs and moans. If a kiss has a taste, it tastes like this. Hunger flavored with yearning and spiced with desperation.
His smile packs a rush of adrenaline, a needle plunged right through my heart, deploying blood and endorphins and electricity to all my vital parts.
“What do politicians make? They make war. They make profit off the misfortune of others. They make mistakes they won’t take responsibility for and decisions they never have to feel the impact of.
“I really think we should discuss this in private,” he says, reaching for my hand again. I cross my hands behind my back, out of reach, and just stare him down, wordlessly warning him. “All right.” He gives a careless shrug. “That night in the alley when we fuc—” I clamp my hand over his mouth and drag him by the arm into the conference room. He closes the door behind us and leans against it, a smug smile on his disgustingly handsome face.
“Since you found out that I’m a Cade,” he says. “I don’t have to hide anymore. There’s something you should know about us.” “And what’s that?” I ask, feeling hunted by the wolf gleam in his eyes. I want to deny what a thrill it sends through me. “We get whatever the fuck we want,” he says, dropping his eyes down the length of my body. “And I want you, Lennix Moon. I want the girl who chases stars.”
“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism,” I quote. “I love this country too much to settle for the lies written in our history books. I love the Constitution too much not to hold the men who wrote it accountable for the truth of its principles.”
Just our two bodies, sun and moon, just our souls, earth and water. We are the sky and the sea, and the horizon is where our hearts meet. Every part of that world is made by and from and for just us two.
