Kay (Katie) Hansen > Kay (Katie)'s Quotes

“How do I say, I knew but wanted
to be wrong,
How do I say, I knew
and knew it was somehow
inevitable.
How do I say, a sheep
doesn't really know about
about slaughter until their ears
are full of screaming.”
― Olivia A. Cole, Dear Medusa

“Tinsley seems nice enough but he doesn't know
that the girl he sees catching the bus
has two bloody stumps under her shirt
where wings used to be
and when we makes jokes about running

the stumps tingle, phantom limbs.

He doesn't know he's talking to a ghost
that when he jokes about running
he's rubbing salt into a wound
he can't see.”
― Olivia A. Cole, Dear Medusa

“and Ray might've understood
how running feels like freedom

but I don't think he could comprehend
how the flesh I wear is feral -

that giving it kindness sends it farter
into the trees, eyes glowing

that it no longer understands softness
when everything it touches turns to stone.”
― Olivia A. Cole

“I don't know how to tend this garden
full of wild red things.

Before, I would have gone running. Now,
the thing I do to stay calm are things
a stranger would do:

ride the bus
play card games on my phone: poker, spades, Razz
memorize street maps
play music so loud it makes my head hurt
and never songs I like.

Anything to escape my brain, body.
Anything to be somewhere
someone
else.”
― Olivia A. Cole

“You don't even like him.
If you don't like it why
do it??"

And even in my head I don't
have an answer other than
"At least I'm in control.”
― Olivia A. Cole

“I may not know everything, but
I know enough to be sure
that every secret in my life
is connect at the core -

I don't know what the notes mean
or who's writing them, but
I do know that shining a light
means you see what's in the dark

and a girl can only handle
so many monsters, especially
when there's one staring back
in the mirror.”
― Olivia A. Cole

“I wonder how long I'll play this Game: testing men for fortitude
wondering when adults will be adults.
He leaves with my number.
I finish my tacos

I have done this so many times,
always winning
winning myself
into oblivion.

I never try with women.
I know it wouldn't
work.”
― Olivia A. Cole

“But then there's the new girl.
I learn her name is Geneva.

She still wears black every day and
today when I pass her in the hall
I'm studying her as if with a telescope
and her eyes lift and catch mine.
Her black lips crack to
release a sliver of a smile
and without meaning to
I think
'Oh there's the sun”
― Olivia A. Cole

“Sometimes I'm torn about eyes
because there are times when I'm
riding the bus
walking to class
shopping with my mom,

when I look up to find
eyes on my body,
hungry stare, sometimes someone
my age and sometimes
not, a stare that turns me
into a meal.

And sometimes I like the way it feels
like someone has lit a torch
in my stomach in the deepest night
and all the moths come seeking.

Is it possible
to like something sometimes
and hate it other times?

Am I allowed
to decide when
I want to be
a feast?”
― Olivia A. Cole, Dear Medusa

“The thing about giving things away
is that people think
because you give things
away

that means
nothing
can be taken
from you
even if the thing
you give away
is your body.

Is that what
it means
to be canceled?

Is canceled
like math:
giving
and
taking away
canceling each other out
until
nothing”
― Olivia A. Cole, Dear Medusa

“That's when the game began
Maybe not right away
His arm around my shoulders
His finders at the edge of my bra,
it pulled all my atoms apart
then dropped me into stasis.

Weeks passed
and months,
everything that made me
who I am
rearranged,
like Dr. Manhattan in the test chamber
put back together as something
not quite human.

I saw on Tumblr that people with trauma
will sometimes reexpose themselves to trauma
over and over until they think they understand what happened.

I don't know why I play the Game.
I understand what happened.

My biology teacher hurt me
and if I was smarter I could find a clever metaphor
about chemistry that tells why and how
but the simplest way to say it is that
I was a student but he saw a rabbit
and no one will believe me
because he's the most
beloved wolf in school.”
― Olivia A. Cole, Dear Medusa

“I don't wear dresses. But sometimes
when I'm trying to transform myself
into someone with a heart made of iron

I tell myself this is what I am,
that my hair is red like a siren
and not a salamander

that I am a vicious man-eater
and not a rabbit

not a rabbit
not a rabbit
not something so easily so consumed

I am the thing with fangs.
Not a wolf but something more monstrous,
not a sad girl with a scar across her soul
but a creature who eats souls
for breakfast.”
― Olivia A. Cole, Dear Medusa

“But he has his own apartment
and he takes me there
where I wade into that dark water,
sometimes looking at my phone
to see when it will start glowing and screaming,
my father coming to the house to check on us
and finding me gone.

But it never does.
He never does.”
― Olivia A. Cole, Dear Medusa

“I keep seeing Geneva in the museum
and it feels more like history
the way I end up in the same exhibits
as Geneva,
the way we end up side by side
studying ancient suits of armor,
as if a magnet has been installed
between my ribs and draws me
toward something in her made
of iron or nickel.

'I thought they were all made of metal,'
she says, and i think she's reading my mind
until I realize she's talking about the armor,
the way the exhibit says some civilizations
made armor out of plants, of animal, of wood.

'Some are made of bone too,' I say, pointing.

And then she's looking at me, her hand raised,
and she takes a single finger and presses it against
the back of my hand, saying
'And some are made of skin.”
― Olivia A. Cole, Dear Medusa

“Staring at my legs,
I remember how they once felt
carrying me around the track,
one stride at a time, one breath
at a time. The never-ending
strike swish strike
as my legs carried me on and on,

part of a beautiful, complicated machine.

My body felt
powerful
capable
brimming with joy,
part of me.

Now I feel like Dorothy,
tumbled out of a tornado
into a strange land.

I don't recognize any part
of myself. When I stare too long
at any one extremity
hands
ankles
I feel a swell of something
like grief, words in my head
repeating

Those aren't mine
Those aren't mine
I'm not mine”
― Olivia A. Cole, Dear Medusa

“We're pulling into the parking lot
when he finally speaks
asks me why

I don't run track anymore:

I was so good
I was so fast
Didn't I set a record

Yes I was
Yes I was
Yes I did

But I don't say it out loud: those words
have sharp edges and snag
in my throat. Instead I say

'I just have other priorities right now'
and am out of the car
before he can ask what they are,
before he can see
the tears that emerge
for the first time since
the Day.
'Thanks for the ride, though”
― Olivia A. Cole, Dear Medusa

“David gets in the front seat and I don't even argue,
I imagine the backseat as a ditch
on a battlefield, safe-ish
from flying artillery.

But no one argues. My dad is an expert
at pretending everything is fine,
and my brother actually smiles
tells Dad a story from school.

I should be happy, relieved
that the two hours to Cincinnati
are peaceful, but I can't help but feel
everyone in the car is wearing a mask,
especially me”
― Olivia A. Cole, Dear Medusa

“And then the whisper becomes words:
'You could run again.'
'You could run in college.'
'Coach Young always said you could.'
'You could go to the Olympics.'

And that's where I smash the whisper with my fist,
because sometimes it seems absurd to wish
for things I know I don't deserve

How could I?
Look what I am.”
― Olivia A. Cole, Dear Medusa

“I read an article about mass shootings
and how when a person survives one
in a movie theater perhaps
they may never go to the movies again.

The wide dark,
the silver glow,
only the narrow aisles
for cover...

it's all too much.

Sites of trauma.

And I think that school
has obviously become
a site of trauma for me

but so has Kroger
and the park
and sometimes
the bus

even though it also
a vessel of freedom.

But the thing that all
of these sites have in common
is my body,
and I wonder
sometimes
how you avoid a site
of trauma when the site
is your own self
and I think the answer is
you stop thinking of the body
as yours
and maybe that makes it
easier to walk
inside it.”
― Olivia A. Cole, Dear Medusa

“Random thoughts about Debbie's finger

I've heard you can reattach
the thing that's been severed
but only if you find it in time
before rot sets in

and I wonder
if it's the same
with souls:

if you have a finite
amount of time
to find the thing
you've lost
before
you are forever
soulless.”
― Olivia A. Cole, Dear Medusa

“And I hear my grandma's
voice in my head
'Birds of a feather'
and Mr. Mattson's voice
'Like attracts like,'

and I wonder
what kind of bird
what kind of element
am I, where
the kinds of things
I attract
are the friends

the people

who want

to hurt me.”
― Olivia A. Cole, Dear Medusa

“It's not until Uncle Ronnie returns
from the grill with the final plate of burgers,
settling into a seat at the head of the table,
that it hits me. He makes himself a plate
then gazes down the table, his eyes
coming to rest on me and Deja.

'So how is school for you girls?'
'Grades okay?'

And then I realize:
he sees me as a child.

It's like a bolt of lightning snaking
down electric from the sky. Almost
every day since I was thirteen,
since my body first began to transform,
I have moved through the world
surrounded by men trying to convince
me and themselves
that there is no such thing as too young
for a woman, or too old for a man,

that there is no such thing
as an unavailable female body.

I have been moving through the world
feeling like a glowing green light,
green for go
Go
GO

and Deja's uncle Ronnie is the first person
in a long time to see me,
not the red of my hair,
but me
and decide on his own
to stop.”
― Olivia A. Cole, Dear Medusa

“I remember the thing
that I saw on Tumblr,
how people with trauma
will sometimes reexpose
themselves to it,
salt in the wound
to stay alive.

I am tired
of salting the wound -
I am ready
to salt the earth.”
― Olivia A. Cole, Dear Medusa

“We are the heart of our communities, and that only works because of what the people who run libraries give of themselves. They do it knowing that there will be hard days and disappointment, budget fights, and individuals whom they may not be able to reach. The best librarians make that emotional investment because they believe in the institution and the community they serve.”
― Michael Stephens, Wholehearted Librarianship: Finding Hope, Inspiration, and Balance

“That was the thing about restorative justice. It allowed you to hold two things in your head at the same time -- that butt-slapping was funny, and also that it wasn't. That asking permissions to touch somebody was funny, but that you really didn't want to be touched by somebody who didn't ask. That the girls wanted Jeff to dial back the ass-smacking thing, but they still like joking around with him. That the whole thing wasn't a big deal, and that it kinds of was. That was what community was. All those layers of understanding.”
― Dashka Slater, The 57 Bus

“Do you understand the violence it took to become this gentle?”
― Nitya Prakash