When the Tides Held the Moon

by Venessa Vida Kelley

“To give you my name is to give you the last of myself, and humanity has taken enough from me. My name is my own. You may not have it.”

“It is the simple truth of every creature with a soul. You are not your body, Benigno.”

“But it was kind of you,” he said, not laughing. “And kindness is its own food.”

The softest hearts wear the thickest armor.

Don’t waste your damn life trying to smother a spark what wants to be a blaze.”

“I don’t have a choice,” I tried to explain. “In this town, choices are for white men with money, and the rest of us do what we can to get by. When the options are getting sick or shot or thrown in jail, what choices do any of us really have?” “Do not speak to me of choices when you have not been locked in an iron box,” he said icily. “You have choices, but you are too frightened to make them!”