Sofia

“On the sly, you observe the adults whose childhood lies inside them, torn and full of holes like a used and moth-eaten rug no one thinks about anymore or has any use for. You can’t tell by looking at them that they’ve had a childhood, and you don’t dare ask how they managed to make it through without their faces getting deeply scarred and marked by it. You suspect that they’ve used some secret shortcut and donned their adult form many years ahead of time. They did it one day when they were home alone and their childhood lay like three bands of iron around their heart, like Iron Hans in Grimms’ fairy tale, whose bands broke only when his master was freed. But if you don’t know such a shortcut, childhood must be endured and trudged through hour by hour, through an absolutely interminable number of years. Only death can free you from it, so you think a lot about death, and picture it as a white-robed, friendly angel who some night will kiss your eyelids so that they never will open again.”
― Tove Ditlevsen, Childhood

“She knew that no matter how you self-identify ultimately, chances are that you succumb to becoming what the world treats you as.”
― Torrey Peters, Detransition, Baby

“You spared the adults in your household. You learned how if a thing is not
spoken of, even those closest to you, who love you, will assume that it doesn’t exist.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Rape: A Love Story

“On Earth lately, I’ve been looking at everyone
like I love them, & maybe I do. Or maybe I only love
one person, & I’m beaming from it. Or actually
I just love myself, & I want people to know.”
― Chen Chen