Small Change Quotes

“Tattoos are the scars you can choose.”
― Roan Parrish, Small Change

“There was this wall of ice between us that no amount of sunniness could melt. We had been inseparable before that. I could see him through it. The wall. He was the same as he always was. And he wanted to spend time with me the way he always had. But I was untouchable. He threw himself up against the wall over and over because he couldn't see it. But I couldn't do anything from my side except watch him pick himself up, every time a little more bruised, and do it again.”
― Roan Parrish, Small Change

“It’s so unfortunate the way people can never look past his truly lamentable looks to see the pure heart that beats within.” I grinned, liking him immediately. “Yeah, well I’m actually blind, so I was able to encounter him without the weight of societal constructions of beauty between us. Plus I totally believed him when he said he was super attractive.”
― Roan Parrish, Small Change

“I don’t really think my job is to make myself easy to like,” I bit off. It”
― Roan Parrish, Small Change

“Would I tell him? It was hard to know. Hard to know if in the moment it happened I would feel open to discussing it, or if I’d feel resentful or angry or hurt and so explaining it to him would be the last thing I was willing or able to do. “I’ll try,” I said.”
― Roan Parrish, Small Change

“So, you identify as queer, yeah?” Christopher confirmed, and I nodded. “This might be silly,” he said. “Or maybe not cool to ask, I don’t know. But will you tell me if you feel like I’m doing a thing where I cast you in a role you don’t think is right?”
― Roan Parrish, Small Change

“Morgan and I had recognized each other right away. You could just tell when you met another person whose thick skin had been forged in the fire of difference.”
― Roan Parrish, Small Change

“have a crush on this girl. Yes, I realize that makes me sound fourteen. But it feels ridiculous to use the word “woman” in the same sentence as “crush,” like pairing caviar with cotton candy.”
― Roan Parrish, Small Change

“Some days I just…I have this, uh, thing. It’s like someone walked by and turned the volume up on the whole world. Every sound is deafening, and every detail of every brick catches my eye so I can’t help but notice it. A touch feels like sandpaper across my skin, and basic, simple things like ordering a sandwich become this, like, tactical mission with so many moving parts…”
― Roan Parrish, Small Change

“But on days like today, when the world felt a little too loud, a little too close, a little too much, I had to admit it: I longed for someone I could throw everything I was at, who would receive it. Gather it from the space between us with the sheer power of their hands and their insight and their care, and contain it like a devastating blast. Hold the jagged and shaggy pieces of my explosion suspended, relieved of their weight, quiet. At peace.”
― Roan Parrish, Small Change

“Without the anger there was just fear. Fear of being rejected. Fear that someday I’d get so lonely I’d compromise in ways I didn’t want to. Fear that I’d be so afraid of compromising when I shouldn’t that I’d refuse to compromise when I should.”
― Roan Parrish, Small Change

“God, fuck you,” I said, with no heat. “What?” I twisted my hair up and held it on top of my head for a minute because I was getting warm from the wine and all the bodies in the room. Christopher’s eyes tracked to my neck and then back to my face, and I smiled. “Oh, because. You’re ridiculous. You’re great with people and you genuinely like them, so you make them feel comfortable, and it’s just absurd. I bet you’re friends with all your exes, and when you see people you know from other moments in your life you, like, joyfully call out to them because you want to know how they’re doing.” “Well, what do you do?” “Me? I duck down behind the cereal aisle in the hopes that they won’t notice me because probably I didn’t like them when I knew them and I sure as hell don’t want to talk to them now!” Christopher’s grin was warm, and I muttered “Shut up,” and shoved at his arm. Only he didn’t move and I slid on my chair and glared at him.”
― Roan Parrish, Small Change

“When I was in high school I was so angry, all the time,” I said as I made connections among his freckles. It was easier to talk like this, addressing my thoughts to someone’s skin. “Angry at the world, angry at myself, at my parents. Everything seemed like this rigged game, where the only way to win was to either become something I hated, or to burn the game down. The only thing I cared about was drawing. When I drew, I could make the world anything I wanted. Make things look how I wished they were. Change all the rules. And when I got into tattooing, I loved that I could do that for people. Could help them make their bodies into what they wanted them to be. It’s such a powerful thing, to rewrite your own skin.” It had taken me years to get comfortable in my own; to style myself exactly as I wished. A friend once told me that some people choose their style to hide who they are and some choose their style to express it. And I wasn’t interested in hiding. “That’s what I did, you know? I rewrote who”
― Roan Parrish, Small Change

“At ten, I’d been confused by their lack of approval. At thirteen, I’d been hurt. At sixteen I’d been furious. And at twenty, resigned. These days, I liked to think I saw them more clearly than they saw me. But the truth was it was infuriatingly easy for them to get in my head sometimes. To hear my mother’s voice as I looked at myself in the mirror, or my father’s silence as I searched for a dissenting opinion.”
― Roan Parrish, Small Change

“I was over changing who I was to try and make my parents happy; had been for years. But the fact that I’d stopped trying didn’t mean I ever stopped wishing things were different. My mom had always found fault with everything I did. With everything I was. The things I most valued in myself—my strength, my outspokenness, my self-possession—she demeaned. To her, I wasn’t strong, I was rude and thoughtless. I wasn’t outspoken, I was antagonistic and embarrassing. I wasn’t self-possessed, I was a misfit rebelling because she wished for acceptance.”
― Roan Parrish, Small Change

“But that’s the thing. It isn’t a joke. The potato. I mean, yes, I know what you mean. Lots of tattoo artists and folks who are heavily inked don’t care so specifically about each individual piece. It stops being about each tattoo as a work of art and starts being about an approach to life where you carry your history with you. You wear it. It’s visible for the world to see, but more importantly so you can’t forget any of it. So yeah, you might get a tattoo from a friend to commemorate an event and not care so much what it looks like as you do that every time you see it you’ll remember the moment you shared. And the more you have, the more possible that is because they blend together into just…you. Your past made present on your body.” Christopher’s eyes scanned my visible ink like he was trying to read that past. My arms, my hands. When he lingered on my neck, my breath hitched. “It…confronts you with yourself. With the things you’ve thought, felt, done. You can’t pretend something didn’t happen if it’s on your skin. You can’t forget. And they’re also a way to retell the story, I guess. You know, like, if something bad happens, a lot of people get a tattoo. Not because they want to remember the bad thing, but because once they’ve lived through it, or figured it out, then every time they look at the tattoo they remember that process. Tattoos are the scars you can choose.” He was staring at me”
― Roan Parrish, Small Change