Wishing for Birds Quotes

“Look to your kingdoms—
I am coming for them all.”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“(That girl on the news never invited that man to touch her. All I can think about is how I wish she had had something savage coursing through her skin. God should have made girls lethal when he made monsters of men.)”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“I could do it. I could rip your life out like a fury, like a beast.
I could stand over you with my red hands
and lap the heart out of your hollow chest.
I'm a wolf, I'm a woman, I'm a building hurricane.
I'm whole-way sharp teeth, soul-sick wet claws.
I say "love me," and you say, "you're killing me."
I say, "i'd die for you," and you say," You'd kill for me—that's not the same thing.”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“You’re a defiant act of creation. You’re a whole solar system pretending to be a person.”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“She was desperate,
she was deathless. I’d have followed her
anywhere she asked of me. I’d have
thrown myself to the wild for her.”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“I want to be eaten alive. I want

to feel wanted.”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“If I tell my bones they’re a cage
maybe they’ll keep this
snarling heart contained.”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“I mean I don’t want to die but I sure would appreciate the quiet.”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“i dream nights and
girls like tigers,
claws and teeth on both.”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“you always feared god-born achilles
the most of all your fellows.
his divinity wove him taller,
better, quicker, stronger.

well here's a secret for you:
my father was a swan,
and the monthly blood on my thighs
is two-parts ichor.

you think achilles was of impressive descent?
touch me one more time.
maybe it's time we found out
what the daughter of the mightiest god
can do.

look to your kingdoms.
i am coming for them all.”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“You can’t build a life
on another human being. We’re foundations
of sand. We’re Atlas buckling under the sky.”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“You taste like metal & blood,
kiss like a man’s last gunshot.
I could find religion in your face.
Build a church in the palms of your hands.”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“Here are the things that do fill me: a night sky,
endless and rammed with stars. The soaring
of a soundtrack over a triumphal point
in a film trailer, something inside me stirring
like an animal. Dark roads and cosy cars,
and imagining having somebody I loved
enough to distract me in the front seat.
Helplessness, sometimes. Anger, always.”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“There’s so much world and sea and salt and
what I want to know is how much does it frighten you?
How much does it make you shake?”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“When they come for you you will know it is because you have made them afraid.”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“I’m a wolf, I’m a woman, I’m a building hurricane. I’m whole-way sharp teeth, soul-sick wet claws. I”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“You’re a defiant act
of creation.”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“My keys press purple shapes into my hands and I whisper, It will not be me, not tonight. Am I stating or am I praying? Sometimes they sound so awfully the same.”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“The Monster in Me I could do it. I could rip your life out like a fury, like a beast. I could stand over you with my red hands and lap the heart out of your hollow chest. I’m a wolf, I’m a woman, I’m a building hurricane. I’m whole-way sharp teeth, soul-sick wet claws. I say, “love me,” and you say, “you’re killing me.” I say, “I’d die for you,” and you say, “You’d kill for me— that’s not the same thing.”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“I’ve just got this restless ache at the centre of me. I’m worried it’s infected. I’m worried it’s spreading to my heart.”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“Homesickness Standing under a million stars screaming up at them, PLEASE JUST TAKE ME HOME, with a voice rusty like the underside of boats, feeling it scratch at a throat like swallowed fish-bones. Making petitions to get the universe to care more, signing our names on any scrap of paper passed along like a single name could change the whole wide world. Could change galaxies. Tearing clothes, ripping skin, pleading, TAKE ME BACK, JUST TAKE ME BACK, I’m not willing to be a person any more. Science says I was part of a star once and I just— I want to be back there, always burning. These atoms could have been a lioness but here I am instead, these fragile limbs, and I never found out the returns policy. Take me back, take me back, I want to go home. Broken glass catching at my feet and the air too hot in my lungs. If I could have been anything why am I this?”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“You The lines of your neck. The slope down to your shoulders. The unsteady blue welt of veins at your wrists, a sluggish estuary pounding into your fingers. Lungs that were once stars heaving air in and feet that are still walking despite it all dragging through the dust. You: A miracle with a smile like skies. A universe wearing human skin.”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“Unpassable Exam Choose one question to answer: WHAT IS MY WORTH? a) the span between your thighs b) a list of letters on an exam certificate c) the number of boys you’ve (not) been to bed with d) all of the above WHAT IS MY WORTH? a) the distance you’ve come b) the places you’re going c) the depthless truth at the centre of you d) your courage, your courage, your courage”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“The sun comes under the clouds and I’m looking for Phaethon in the gaps. The hooves keep coming. I hear them in my sleep. Driving horses like an apocalypse but missing Death, War, Pestilence, Famine. They’re busy in another part of the world we’re pretending we can’t hear screaming. A”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“Other people make angels out of boys like you.

But I? Choked-up lungs and erratic flight; I
leave too fast to find the light.”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“The Lie of Unfair Life I guess the grand lie is that the world has to be grim. Toughen up, kid, that’s just the way it is. The lie told when boys push other boys on the playground (because boys are tough, only) or when the looming adult says something that’s not fair or when your sister takes something that you wanted and never gives it back. Life isn’t fair. People are unkind and all our heroes are fighting themselves more than their foes. I’m not trying to start anything but what if we tried to teach our kids to change the world instead of resign themselves to it? So you’re born and you work and you die. We’ve got this line that says apathy’s the coolest. If you don’t care you’ve got it made. I slap the naïve label on and ask what we could do if we cared loudly about things and envied the people who feel deeply instead of the ones who trick us into thinking they don’t feel anything at all. Grass-roots happiness, optimism as a political act. All of us facing each other and admitting that we’ve got hearts ready to fill up and burst.”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“Weights He buys me a ring with, you are the only thing I am living for, engraved along the edge and when I slip it on that expectation burns me. I feel it branding my skin. I can’t sleep for the fire of those words against my finger. My hand gets so heavy I can’t lift it to his face and months go by as the weight slides up my arm and into my shoulder. By Christmas I am bent double and gasping. By Easter I can’t get off the floor. It’s too much, I try to whisper, too much to carry this. You can’t build a life on another human being. We’re foundations of sand. We’re Atlas buckling under the sky.”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“Space Race Wanting the sky, wanting the horizon, wanting to travel further than anyone has ever gone. There were days when nobody knew what was over the other side of the sea. A time when wild places sprawled endless and unchanging. But here we are, too late to explore the Earth and too soon to venture into space. I want to sleep until the universe is open. I want to sleep until I can pour myself into it and never look back; chase galaxies like sailors once chased ports.”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds

“You think Achilles was of impressive descent? Touch me one more time. Maybe it’s time we found out what the daughter of the mightiest god can do. Look to your kingdoms— I am coming for them all.”
― Elisabeth Hewer, Wishing for Birds