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“Boy, we all gonna die. Question is, how did you live? Did you live or just wait for death to come? Not me. I ain’t waiting for nothing.”
Even if I don’t agree with someone, I never discount the opportunity to learn something I hadn’t considered.
I believe in economy of words. Talking too much usually means saying things I didn’t want to or shouldn’t have.
“The past is shit. The future is uncertain. All you have is now.”
“Understudy or not, tonight’s a big deal, not just for you, but for the little girls out there who need to see us onstage. Tonight’s not just your night. It’s all of ours.”
A wound left untended festers, and that’s what’s happened with my family.
She’s adularescent, the glow of a stone that comes from beneath the surface—like all the brightest parts of her aren’t available to the naked eye,
She reaches you. With an audience this large, she makes it personal. In a story that is pretend, she makes it feel true.
And in a moment when I wasn’t looking, I’ve found exactly what I was looking for.
Big brown eyes that in one moment offer everything and in the next seem to hoard a thousand secrets. A man would ransom his soul for those eyes, for those secrets.
Black artists who shaped our culture, made our music, but whose contributions have gone unacknowledged? Their stories just slipped through the cracks. People who, by all rights, should be household names, but nobody knows their names? All they have to show for what they did is a plaque in their hometown or a line on Wikipedia, if that.”
“Black artists getting their due is personal for me. All my life I’ve seen their talents mined and appropriated, even while being told they weren’t as good.
“Winston Churchill said history is written by the victors, but I would amend that to say it’s often written by liars. History is fact. You can’t change what happened, but you can edit it. People lie and leave out the truth, bend it to suit their needs. I like to tell stories that excavate the facts and expose the truth.”
I’m… a standby.” “No, you’re a star who was standing by waiting for me to find her.”
I want that light. I want that heart and that vulnerability and strength. There is so much inside you, Neevah, and I’m warning you now that I want it all.”
There are a hundred obvious reasons why me plus him would equal bad, but I don’t like seeing him with her.
I don’t have time for games or tolerance for bullshit.
She’s a druid. An innocent. A hedonist. A cluster of contradictions that somehow all make sense in this woman.
I no longer feel the need to find something to talk about because the things find us. She’s that kind of person.
‘We are artists,’” she quotes softly, her eyes set on mine. “‘When there is no joy to be found, we have the power in our hands, the will of our souls, to make it.’”
“What must that be like?” she whispers, her gold-flecked brown eyes dark and deep and curious. “To be your favorite?”
In addition to looking shell-shocked, she looks gorgeous. The kind of gorgeous people do everything in their power to achieve, but you can’t make it. It’s from the inside.
She said, to survive, don’t use your gift for shit you hate. Work in a grocery store, pump gas, pick up trash to get by before you corrupt your art.”
“You are not a bad decision, Canon.” “Maybe not, but I’m one you should wait to make.”
Because wherever he says we can be together, even if only for a few days secreted away from everyone, that’s where I’ll be.
An apology would feel so much better than an excuse.
An apology does feel better than an excuse. The healing property of those two simple words salves my heart, broken and dented by the ones who should have loved me enough.
“Like” is a tepid description for my burning curiosity about this woman. About how she thinks, what makes her laugh.
Sometimes shit has to get awkward before it gets right.
“I want that—to be in a dream with you,”
“I’m willing to chance it because everything you just said you want with me”—I pull her hand up to my lips—“I bet I want it more with you.”
I’m awed that a man as busy as he is, working on the movie of a lifetime, would pay attention to such fine details and my preferences.
You said you can read me easily anyway, so I can’t hide that. You know I want you.”
“And you say you’re not a romantic,” I whisper. “I’m not. I just like you.”
“You’re beautiful, Neevah. It wasn’t the first thing I noticed about you, and it’s not the most important, but I want you to know.”
“And every time I make you smile, I feel like I’ve conquered the world.”
“Like, lay in bed and eat and make love for hours? ’Cause I’m very much down for that.”
“You could be my new tradition.”
It feels the way she feels—tailor-made for me.
“I don’t get stronger when you shield me from things, but I can draw strength from you if you walk with me through them.
Hurt people holler,
My feelings are like a priceless carpet, unrolled little by little until it fills the room.
Sometimes home ain’t great, but it’s still home.
He opens my floodgates, makes me want to give him everything at once, even the crappy parts.
“We don’t have time for this,” she says unevenly. “We need to—” “I’m making time.”
but for now, I don’t give a damn about any of it. Just her.
I honestly don’t know what will be left when all these protective layers fall away, but whatever is left, it’s hers.
I’m starved for the sight of her after spending so little time together this week.
“I’ve never been perfect.” “You are for me,
“Don’t you dare think I see you as any less beautiful than I ever have or that I want you less.”
