Any Man

by Amber Tamblyn

We sink to the bottom of each other’s oceans, drowning in shared silence.

All food is a last meal. “Fish?” Everything leads to the execution. I’ll have the fish, please, and Camilla my dear, can we swing by the bar on the way home I think I left my body there

Donald notices a dark figure standing in the background of the photograph. Some creature with a wild, tangled mouth. Some ghost. Fear surges through Donald’s body as he worries for the safety of the children in the photograph. Donald blinks and realizes it is just Donald in the photograph with the children, not a ghost.

You’re not good right now, but you will be.”

it’s okay to process your shit however you want to. It’s your shit. It’s no one else’s shit. As long as you’re not hurting someone else. Your hell is yours and you get to decide, okay? You get to decide when you’re ready. It’s important that I say this, though: It’s not your fault, whatever happened to you. It’s not your fault. But healing your own pain does belong to you now.

“Anger has that peculiar quality of isolation; like sorrow, it cuts one off, and for the time being, at least, all relationship comes to an end. Anger has the temporary strength and vitality of the isolated. There is a strange despair in anger; for isolation is despair.”

There are no mitigating factors when it comes to sexual assault, Jennifer.

People who live through sexual assault are a crash on the side of the road, and the American media is nothing more than cars slowing down just long enough to take a peek.

For people who have suffered violent sexual crimes, proof—the very act of proving—is more than just a burden. It is boundless bearing. An eternity of futility.

I experienced death but I am not a ceasing.