Swallowtail Quotes

“Peach pits are poisonous. This is not a mistake. Girlhood is growing fruit around cyanide. It will never be your for swallowing.”
― Brenna Twohy, Swallowtail

“I learnt how to make this urgent flame look like a lantern.”
― Brenna Twohy, Swallowtail

“It’s called a mondegreen, a misheard lyric, like how the Ramones will sing, I wanna be sedated, & my mom will nod along as she sings, I want a piece of bacon. It’s the way our brains fill in gaps, make sense of things we didn’t
or couldn’t hear, the way my mom said,
he’s gone, & I asked her where?”
― Brenna Twohy, Swallowtail

“LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD ADDRESSES THE NEXT WOLF

You hear the story
of the horrors done to my body,
and you say,
We aren’t all like that, you know.
Let me show you how gentle my hands are.
It’s not your fault, you say,
that your teeth
are the same shape
as his teeth.
But I was swallowed whole
and they renamed me caution
for their daughters.
I was swallowed whole
and they said,
That is what happens
to little girls who climb in bed with monsters.
There are mornings
when my own bedroom
looks exactly like the middle of the woods.
& I’m not calling you dangerous.
I’m just making sure you understand
the moral of the story.
This has nothing to do with the threat
of strangers in the forest.
The moral of the story is
I will gut you if I need to.
I will carve my way out
using only my teeth.”
― Brenna Twohy, Swallowtail

“NEVILLE LONGBOTTOM’S BOGGART ATTENDS SEVERUS SNAPE’S FUNERAL

& no one will look directly at him.
even though he is in the front row.
even though he’s the biggest thing in the room.
the whole world pulls a handkerchief from her pocket
and whispers the word redemption.
and the boggart stares into the casket,
wonders what it feels like
to wash a dead man’s hands clean.
& of course, it is a tragedy—
that you name your abuser,
finally,
in a room full of people,
and they shrug, tell you of a girl he loved once,
lecture you about forgiveness, about changing spots
on the leopards that are still hunting you,
pretend they weren’t watching
as your trauma
wrapped itself in your grandmother’s clothes
and dared you to survive it loudly.
remember, this is a story about a boy who lives.
about power
that does not come easy,
the magic of packed earth
and the things that dare
to come out of it.
let your courage
make a mess of their story.
let it crawl into his coffin
ugly
and thumping
and unburied.”
― Brenna Twohy, Swallowtail

“A magician talks about the record for holding one’s breath as his assistant lowers herself into a tank of water.

He calls it twenty-two minutes, but I swear to you it’s longer.
I swear to you, it’s years.”
― Brenna Twohy, Swallowtail