“Think Lightly Of Yourself And Deeply Of The World.”

With such a hell in your heart and your head, how can you live? How can you love?

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

We are products of our past but we don’t have to be prisoners of it.

Rick Warren

And I wondered what it was like to be chosen. I was never chosen. I was a maybe, a probably, sometimes even a definitely but never the one, never the chosen one.

Unknown

It’s never too late to change the direction that your life is going in.

Wayne Dyer

Men and what doesn't belong to them

The price tag is at $30, too overpriced for a simple doll

The sky is pitch black by the time I leave the mall, my hands empty-handed and freezing

A breeze of air sends strands of hair onto my face

A buzz emerges from my back pocket

Where are you?

I turn off the screen, I can't be seen distracted, especially at night

It's like my mom's warnings are screeching against my ear

She tells me of men who hide in dark alleyways, biting like dogs at woman's feet

She reminds me of how my cousin was dragged by one of those dogs, how her eyes don't glow like they used to

She walked too much like a woman, that's why they caught her, she tells me

Because they can't blame her for her baggy clothing

But how do I tell her that my father is like those men?

Pulling her wherever he pleases, dressing her how he sees fit

It's as if the wedding certificate, buried inside a memory box, is the same thing as the receipt that's pushed by the wind

I walk briskly under the street lights, my heart beats loudly every time a car slows down

Even if I'm in the middle of a crowd, it'll only give me the illusion of safety

I wonder if my friend felt helpless, as my 4th grade teacher hugged her tightly, knowing everyone's eyes were on her

I heard of a story on the radio with my grandma once, of a woman who was sold as a child to a much older man

She sighed. Thank God, we aren't in that wretched country anymore.

I couldn't find it in me to tell her that this happens everywhere, even in the safety of a “first world country”

I look at his message one last time, knowing I'll never see his picture again

If you don't answer this time, I swear I'll ki—

I should have known that he was like every man, poor, rich, old, and young, with what doesn't belong to him

“A falcon who chases a warlike crane can only hope for a life of pain.”

— Gabriel García Márquez, Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Just because i don’t talk about it, doesn’t mean i forget.

Crazy woman, crazy woman

“I will not think less of myself just because you do not know how to love me.”

— Unknown

Strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives.

Lemony Snicket