The Truth Project Quotes

“Because I get lost in metaphors they don't understand.
My stories live in daydreams
written in verse
I never, ever share.
Unfit for lighthearted dinner conversation.”
― Dante Medema, The Truth Project

“I couldn't understand
why none of them
needed to say something
a million times
in their heart
before they spoke
it with their tongue.”
― Dante Medema, The Truth Project

“I've been cut open
and spread out
so everyone can see
how every moment my heart pumps
is a moment it bleeds.”
― Dante Medema, The Truth Project

“What is it that you learned?"

I smile.
I've thought a lot about this.
How my question this year was to understand
how ancestry shapes me.
I think ancestry only shapes you
if you want it to.

How you can go your whole life
never knowing what you were meant to be
and never knowing what you could have been and still
be you.

How family
is the thing that shapes you.
The nurturing from the people closest to you and the experiences you share
are the things that make you whole.

I learned,
through this project,
that the man who contributed to my DNA
isn't the one who made me who I am.
That was the man who raised me,
who watched my first steps,
and encouraged me every step after-
even when it took me away from him.

I shrug,
a shrug that almost hurts,
diminishing the last few months
to an essay question.

"Nothing I didn't already know, deep down.”
― Dante Medema, The Truth Project

“no matter what decorate the branches,
stretch out beneath the ground
-intertwined with other trees
that might not look the same
but have identical systems of growth.
Turn instead to what has always been.
Crawl into the shade of the trees that protect you,
collapse beneath the canopy
of what you know is true.
Feel how you are loved
and love them back.”
― Dante Medema, The Truth Project