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No matter how many borders we cross, we can’t seem to outrun the fear of not feeling safe in our own homes.
Sometimes reality strays so far from what’s rational that we can only explain it through fantasy.”
Deep down, we would rather be dreaming than awake.
Hide, be invisible, take up as little space as possible—share a small bed, in a small room, in a small apartment, in a small corner of the world, limited to a small routine and a small life.
After that, I stopped looking at the bars of my cage and started looking between them. If my life sucks, that just means it hasn’t peaked yet. I’m in the middle of my story. And every tomorrow could be my happily ever after.
But Tiago has never known what he wants. He has this tendency of just stumbling into things and discovering he’s a natural. Sports, academics, music, whatever it is, he makes having talent look like a burden—”
I want to tell her I don’t understand why she kept so much of my past secret from me, but I also want her to know how much it means that she gave up everything for my sake. I want to tell her that even though I’ve met witches and werewolves, she’s still the strongest being I know.
And just like that, I have an identity.
“When someone deviates from an accepted norm, they signal a gap in the system. A hole that hasn’t been plugged. The danger with exposing a foundation’s failings is it opens the door to the possibility that it’s a faulty structure altogether and should be torn down and built anew.”
“Because we continue to evolve, and those organisms that stay stuck in the past don’t make the next cut.”
My most familiar feature is my eyes. Funny how I’ve always avoided them for making me look alien, but now they’re the only link to my humanity.
“I know it’s not safe or fair, but this isn’t just about you.” Her voice is as soft as a caress, even as she delivers a powerful blow. “It’s about everyone who doesn’t fit inside the box they were born into. It’s about showing closed-minded guys like Carlos that they never had the right to cage us in the first place.”
Gender equality and freedom of lifestyle are battles I can’t take on yet, because first I need to win a different war: The right to exist.
“Plant your new garden with the seeds of equality, water it with tolerance and empathy, and warm it with the temperate heat of truth.”
If there’s no word in any known vocabulary to encapsulate me, that just means language can’t define me. A label can’t hold me. I’m beyond classification. I’m an original. I’m— “Undocumented.”
