I Have Waited for You Quotes

“Your existence is defiance: as those around you perish, you gather those passed souls and rise with them, as if your voice and leadership is made stronger by a long line of ancestors who stand tall, in spirit, with you. And I think that's what I loved most about your description of your physical self: 'I would not change anything about me. I represent my ancestors.”
― Ashley Asti, I Have Waited for You: Letters from Prison

“I think one of the best gifts you could offer me, as a writer, is to engage with my words, to tell me how they felt to you. To let me, for a moment, see my words through your eyes. And it feels like you read my words so carefully, that you were gentle with them, nurturing. I feel loved and seen by the way you responded. Thank you for caring for the words that rise from my soul.”
― Ashley Asti, I Have Waited for You: Letters from Prison

“This may sound naive, but I didn't fully imagine that little girls grow up in this country with stories like yours. And that, I am sure, you are not the only one. That little girls grow up in tents and start smoking cigarettes by age eight. So seamlessly have we (those in power) written over stories and lives like yours that, to someone like me, it is very easy not to hear about lives like yours. Not to know or imagine they exist. Not to know that public policy is failing you. Not to know that the prison system is an impoverished and wholly inadequate response to your experience and that it, too, is failing you. Which means it's failing all of us.”
― Ashley Asti, I Have Waited for You: Letters from Prison

“Know that the pain you have endured does not define you to me. What defines you to me is the way you talk about love, especially loving yourself. 'I have learned to love everything about me,' you wrote. You are powerful.”
― Ashley Asti, I Have Waited for You: Letters from Prison

“Was I fearless? No. I think as I've gotten older (I'm 28, to answer your question), I've learned to release myself more. Not to hold back. To be exactly who I am, whether that's 'different' or not. I imagine I will only continue to learn and grow into myself. I want to uncover all parts of me.”
― Ashley Asti, I Have Waited for You: Letters from Prison