Melanie

“we are empty and trying to fill, lighting ourselves on fire just to prove that we are normal—that we are ordinary. That we, like anything, can burn”
― Olivie Blake, The Atlas Six

“It's amazing how much blue there is in the world if you look. You're different colors of flame. Bismuth burns blue, and cerium, germanium, and arsenic. See? I pour you into things.”
― Amal El-Mohtar, This Is How You Lose the Time War

“Trying to get better at the thing you want to be the best at is humiliating.”
― Mary H.K. Choi, Permanent Record

“One day in the future, I will show my child her great-grandmother’s jade, the little gold rabbit with the ruby eyes. I will tell her that this will be hers. I will tell her all the stories about how our family survived, about the wars, and the gambling dens, and, yes, eventually even the golf club. I will tell her that when the sky falls, she should use it as a blanket. And then I will give her the shining thing, the thing that none of us got, the thing that only I, in all of my resilient power, can give. The thing that all this pain has given me. I will hold her tight and tell her that I love her more than anything in the world. That she can always come to me for anything at all, and I will fix it if it needs fixing or just listen if she needs to be listened to. And as long as I live, I will never leave.”
― Stephanie Foo, What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma