The Butterfly Jungle Quotes

“His skin was as soft as a ballad, booty round and just right, body built like a baseballer who lived on empanadas and chilaquiles.”
― Diriye Osman, The Butterfly Jungle

“He kissed me on the mouth. The man tasted like melancholy and mint. He tasted familiar.”
― Diriye Osman, The Butterfly Jungle

“I am a free black man whose body is a testament to surviving unspeakable terror. I am a free black man, and although my memories are ancient, I am a map of new dreams; a cartography of a smooth-and-swift-with-the-scalpel imagination.”
― Diriye Osman, The Butterfly Jungle

“I too wanted a family of my own someday; a home where I would feel safe & supported. I could never have envisioned what that family would look like, but I was determined to honour the God in me.
I was ready to claim my freedom.”
― Diriye Osman, The Butterfly Jungle

“Before I became sick I was a scraggly little creature, but now I’ve got bounce in my booty and a sex-drive that could rival a bonobo’s, which makes all the rude bwoys ride up to my yard fienin’ for a hit of my pretty boy rock.”
― Diriye Osman, The Butterfly Jungle

“I die every night and, if I’m lucky, I’m reborn in the morning. Call it karmic pot-luck, call it spiritual cleansing, call it by any other name than what it actually is: the banal symptoms of schizoaffective disorder.”
― Diriye Osman, The Butterfly Jungle

“I am a free black man who writes as surrender and soulwork; as a tongue-clicking, bomb-femme torch song; as mourning prayer; as metamorphosis.”
― Diriye Osman, The Butterfly Jungle

“Freedom is a molecular flex.”
― Diriye Osman, The Butterfly Jungle