By Light We Knew Our Names Quotes

“We met among tall pines, separate blood, divided by arms and hands and hearts and lungs that all held the same wounds—mine”
― Anne Valente, By Light We Knew Our Names

“I knew my father had told her this, his bevy of trivia, little details she let slide in passing but with fixed frequency now, letting him breathe the air through her.”
― Anne Valente, By Light We Knew Our Names

“And yet we still held hope, sputtering flame, a tiny spark captive inside hollowed marrow to protect from wind, extinguishing gusts, that there was more for us than this.”
― Anne Valente, By Light We Knew Our Names

“These small affections, our shared convergences, they are enough for now because they must be.”
― Anne Valente, By Light We Knew Our Names

“I waited for dawn beneath the blaze, streaks so palette luminous I wanted someone next to me to watch a rage of electricity, magnetic storm, made beautiful only by collision, trapped, shuttling toward earth just to break apart.”
― Anne Valente, By Light We Knew Our Names

“... with the world spinning as it was, as if the balance of gravity itself had shifted beyond progress or promise and our quick collapse had finally come, the air too heavy to hold us.”
― Anne Valente, By Light We Knew Our Names

“... when the weight of what would end was nothing more than an impossibility and the future rolled out plush ahead like a smooth, unbroken highway.”
― Anne Valente, By Light We Knew Our Names

“The lines near her eyes softened, those memories smoothed them out, but then she'd look at me and they'd harden again, as though I'd lurched her back to a relentless march of moments that bore her away from the past.”
― Anne Valente, By Light We Knew Our Names

“Through summer, we waited. We waited through June, through July, when the sun ripped a white fissure from tree line to sky, a sky that burned all day and all night, turning away from us for only moments, four hours, five, settled into its own sleep. The days were long then, stretched wide and full of light, but for us, full of only bruises. Full of slaps across sunburned cheeks when flowers weren’t watered, when dishes sat and scummed. Full of cuts from broken bottles held against our throats until we gasped yes, take my money, just take it and go. Full of scratches from the exposed metal of pick-up flatbeds, latticing the backs of thighs, hands held across our mouths to catch and crush the word no. They were long days full of spilling light, so much light it shadowed every hurt.”
― Anne Valente, By Light We Knew Our Names