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Kurt Cobain. His voice, the damage in it, the way it’s not at all perfect, the way you can feel everything he’s ever felt in it, the way his voice stretches out so thin that you think it’s going to break and then it doesn’t, is the only thing that’s kept me sane since this nightmare began. His misery is so much more abject than mine.
For most immigrants, moving to the new country is an act of faith. Even if you’ve heard stories of safety, opportunity, and prosperity, it’s still a leap to remove yourself from your own language, people, and country. Your own history.
She had this feeling that in America names didn’t mean anything, not like they did in Korea. In Korea, the family name came first and told the entire history of your ancestry. In America, the family name is called the last name. Dae Hyun said it showed that Americans think the individual is more important than the family.
He holds up his hands like he’s defending himself, like he’s trying to push the words in the air back into me.
To be irie is to be in a high and content spiritual place. In the word, you hear the invention of religion itself.
Natasha often wonders about this, how language can be slippery. A word can start off meaning one thing and end up meaning another. Is it from overuse and oversimplification, like the way irie is taught to tourists at Jamaican resorts?
His whole act is so obviously fake that Natasha’s sure everyone will see through him, but then they don’t. He makes them feel good momentarily,
I’m working on a poem about heartbreak that I’ve been working on forever (give or take). The problem is that I’ve never had my heart broken, so I’m having a hard time.
Charlie gulps the water down in three quick swallows and puts the glass back into the cupboard unwashed. He leaves the cupboard open.
Dick move.
Secretly, in their heart of hearts, almost everyone believes that there’s some meaning, some willfulness to life. Fairness. Basic decency. Good things happen to good people. Bad things only happen to bad people. No one wants to believe that life is random.
Observable Fact: You should never take long shots. Better to study the odds and take the probable shot. However, if the long shot is your only shot, then you have to take it.
It’s a very competitive science magnet high school, and I worked very hard to get into it. I can’t believe that after today I may never see it again.
💔
She didn’t know then what it meant to be an undocumented immigrant. How it meant that you could never go home again. How your home wouldn’t even feel like home anymore, just another foreign place to read about.
HUMAN BEINGS ARE NOT REASONABLE creatures. Instead of being ruled by logic, we are ruled by emotions. The world would be a happier place if the opposite were true. For example, based on a single phone call, I have begun to hope for a miracle. I don’t even believe in God.
I’d give anything to really want the life my parents want for me.
“Jesus Christ bleeding on a Popsicle stick,” I whisper under my breath.
The crowd is a mix of tourists who’ve wandered too far from Times Square and actual working New Yorkers wishing the tourists would just go back to Times Square.
I liked him. And then he cheated. I can still remember feeling hurt and betrayed and, weirdly, ashamed.
I can see how it might be fun to tease him just to get him to blush. I
She insists on paying, saying it’s the least she can do. My drink is $6.38 and I let her know that the cost of saving a life is at least two elaborate coffee drinks. She doesn’t even smile.
I wouldn’t either. 😅
I like the feel of his hand so much that I speed up a little to avoid it.
Observable Fact: People aren’t logical.
I don’t want to start over again. It was hard enough when we first moved to America.
“It’s even longer if you spend it chasing dreams that can never, ever come true.”
“Anything Jeremy can use to humanize you will help,” she says. If people who were actually born here had to prove they were worthy enough to live in America, this would be a much less populated country.
I wish I’d gotten his phone number.
My god I hate this trope.
FB (Foolish Boy), DTF (Doomed to Failure).
Hahahaha
I don’t know what it is about her that makes me fearless with the truth.
Because it’s on your head—the highest part of your body and closest to the skies—many Africans viewed it as a passageway for spirits to the soul, a way to interact with God.
The way African American women wear their hair has often been about much more than vanity. It’s been about more than just an individual’s notion of her own beauty.
“Come on,” I say. “Tragedy is funny.” “Are we in a tragedy?” he asks, smiling broadly now. “Of course. Isn’t that what life is? We all die at the end.”
Learn how to use chopsticks.
Talk to your child, damn.
norebang, which is the Korean word for karaoke.
Karaoke is itself the Japanese word for embarrassing oneself by singing in front of a room filled with strangers who are only there to laugh at you.
a poet named Warsan Shire.
great poet ♥️
Ahnighito is thirty-four tons of iron and is the largest meteorite on display in any museum.
After that night, every time he looked at her he had the vague sense that someone had come in when he wasn’t looking and snatched his sweet little girl away.
Yeah, you.
“If you’re so smart, what are you doing back here, Charlie? Is it big fish, small pond syndrome? Were you just a tiny douche bag fish at Harvard?”
Yep!
And then I realize what Charlie’s problem with Daniel is. He hates that Daniel doesn’t hate himself. For all his uncertainties, Daniel is still more comfortable in his skin than Charlie will ever be in his.
Her voice smiles.
♥️
“I know. I’m sorry. I just couldn’t believe it.” “That I didn’t tell you?” I ask. “No. That after all the things that had to happen to get us to meet today, something else was gonna tear us apart.” “You really are hopeless.” “It’s possible,” he says.
Her disbelief isn’t mocking, just investigative.
“What is dark matter?” Delight is the only word for the look on her face. She tugs her hand out of mine, rubs her palms together, and settles in to explain.
“Do you think it’s funny that both of our favorite memories are about the people we like the least now?” I ask. “Maybe that’s why we dislike them,” she says.
The reason he wasn’t able to stop Natasha’s deportation is that he missed the court appointment with the judge who could’ve reversed the Voluntary Removal. He missed it because he’s in love with Hannah Winter, and instead of going to see the judge, he spent the afternoon at a hotel with her.
Motherfucker
I don’t want to be comforted. I want to understand.
I want the whole world to stop. There are too many moving parts that are outside of my control.
The bridge is beautiful at night, but it’s the city skyline that astonishes me every time I see it. It looks like a towering sculpture of lighted glass and metal, like a machined piece of art. From this distance, the city looks orderly and planned, as if all of it were created at one time for one purpose. When you’re inside it, though, it feels like chaos.
She laughs. “Maybe these cards aren’t such a great idea. Can you imagine if everyone had the power to mess with everyone else’s lives? Chaos.” But of course, this is the problem. We already have that power over each other.
Maybe I’m naïve, but I do not give a single shit about anyone’s opinion of us.
