Book Quotations - Tumblr Posts
fatima aamer bilal, from how can i escape my mind?
[text id: i thought i had to be wounded to be loved. i can't be desired, but i can be pitied. / LOVE ME OUT OF PITY. please.]
fatima aamer bilal, ‘being unwanted is a language’ from moony moonless sky.
fatima aamer bilal, ‘all hunger is, is love’ from the heart beats for two.
fatima aamer bilal, from days where my whole world is my bed.
[text id: september arrives like a twisted knife, and i always welcome it with open arms.]
fatima aamer bilal, from shame is a girl’s second skin.
[text id: i am afraid life is becoming a coffin, just with ample space.]
fatima aamer bilal, from shame is a girl’s second skin.
[text id: i wanted to hurl my girlhood on a sidewalk and never walk that road again. / my insides have been eating me up alive lately. / i put my fist in my throat and yank misery out of me. / it looks like me. / you think your touch would burn the sun. / but you want to be held, / you’ll let a hand around your throat for the sake of it. / in grade one, i was six, i would pick the skin off my thumbs until they were bloody, so my teacher would hold my hand and ask me if i was okay. i was six. i thought the show of wounds would earn me love. where did i learn that from? / I WAS SIX / little girl, you’ll grow up, but the malice on your tongue will forever be the words of your father. / every time he opens his mouth, you think it’s to shout. it’s not. / what are memories of childhood if not quicksand? swallowing you whole. / my mother and i, we sit down at the dinner table and translate each other’s hurts, but we do not speak. / because you don’t address the hurt / (it hurts more) / learning to say goodbye but never to let go / choosing to sit in a house that’s burning, because that’s home to you / oh, how i wish this was just a phase, but i am afraid life is becoming a coffin, just with ample space.]
fatima aamer bilal, excerpt from hungry thread of nerves.
[text id: and i am sick of stomaching all the love i have for you. / your name feels like acid in my mouth. what an odd drink to be fond of.]
fatima aamer bilal, excerpt from moony moonless sky’s all the blood in my mouth screams devastatingly desperate, miserable girl.
[text id: i eat approval for dinner, and when not earned any, i go to bed hungry.]
fatima aamer bilal, excerpt from moony moonless sky’s all the blood in my mouth screams devastatingly desperate, miserable girl.
Me constantly. I love that this is a whole chapter
“That’s what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you to another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It’s geometrically progressive - all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment”
— Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
between girls . karen marshall
Wonder Woman by Genny Lim (1981)
from This Bridge Called my Back edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, 2015 [first edition 1981].
"Wonder Woman" Genny Lim
Sometimes I see reflections on bits of glass on sidewalks I catch the glimmer of empty bottles floating out to see Sometimes I stretch my arms way above my head and wonder if There are women along the Mekong doing the same Sometimes I stare longingly at women who I will never know Generous, laughing women with wrinkled cheeks and white teeth Dragging along chubby, rosy-cheeked babies on fat, wobbly legs Sometimes I stare at Chinese grandmothers Getting on the 30 Stockton with shopping bags Japanese women tourists in European hats Middle-aged mothers with laundry carts Young wives holding hands with their husbands Lesbian women holding hands in coffee-houses Smiling debutantes with bouquets of yellow daffodils Silver-haired matrons with silver rhinestoned poodles Painted prostitutes posing along MacArthur Boulevard Giddy teenage girls snapping gum in fast cars Widows clutching their crucifixes I look at them and wonder if They are a part of me I look in their eyes and wonder if They share my dreams I wonder if the woman in mink is content If the stockbroker’s wife is afraid of growing old If the professor’s wife is an alcoholic if the woman in prison is me There are copper-tanned women in Hyannis Port playing tennis Women who eat with finger bowls There are women in factories punching clocks Women tired of every waking hour of the day I wonder why there are women born with silver spoons in their mouths Women who have never known a day of hunger Women who have never changed their own beed linen And I wonder why there are women who must work Women who must clean other women’s houses Women who must shell shrimps for pennies a day Women who must sew other women’s clothes Who must cook Who must die In childbirth In dreams Why must women stand divided ? Bulding the walls that tear them down ? Jill-of-all-trades Lover, mother, housewife, friend, breadwinner Heart and spade A woman is a ritual A house that must accomodate A house that must endure Generation after generation Of wind and torment, of fire and rain A house with echoing rooms Closets with hidden cries Walls with stretchmarks Windows with eyes Short, tall, skinny, fat Pregnant, married, white, yellow, black, brown, red Professional, working-class, aristocrat Women cooking over coals in sampans Women stretching their arms way above the clouds In Samarkand, in San Francisco Along the Mekong
Wonder Woman by Genny Lim (1981)
from This Bridge Called my Back edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, 2015 [first edition 1981].
