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They’d receive their real education at juvie. And by eighteen, they’d realize that the thing they were most qualified to be was an inmate.
“Listen, caring about things don’t make you soft. It makes you alive.”
“This school is not designed for you to excel. It’s raising you up for prison. Your every move is criminalized, by design.
You’re a sane person reacting to an insane situation.
A mantra’s like a magic spell for your brain, telling it to chill.”
if Black people aren’t writing with the intent to DISMANTLE WHITE SUPREMACIST HOOLIGANERY, then we’re wasting our voices.”
“The burden isn’t on me to explain it, Rich. The burden’s on y’all to fix it. Good luck.”
“When you’re drowning, you’ll do anything to get air.”
I found out that cutting was a reaction to feeling helpless. The only time I felt control.”
“But that’s the good stuff,” he insisted. “It’s you.”
The more times you go, the harder it is to tell yourself you don’t belong there.
Prison is the school of the unlearned lesson.”
Sometimes smaller victories count more, she thought.
“I wanna be everything,” he said, his mouth against her ear. “Wanna be the reason you light up. I wanna make you laugh, make you moan, make you safe.”
I wanna be where all your paths end.”
This is that family feeling, he thought. Of total acceptance, belonging to people. A connection that eclipsed everything.
“A tree grows its branches out until it touches the tips of the next closest tree. And they’re linked forever. Because if they’re really close, their roots grow together. They’re so intertwined underneath that no matter what happens above ground, they stay connected.”
“Here’s a thought. Maybe we work better as a flashback.” She shrugged broadly. “You know, meet once every fifteen years, for seven days in June. Make some memories. Move on.”
But when the world fucks with us, the worst thing we can do is bury it. Embracing it makes us strong enough to fuck the world right back.
I’m fighting for myself.
