Home > Author > Danez Smith
1 " The dog upstairs won't shut up, but I can't hate him, he's up there alone all day, making noise must be the only way he knows he's not a ghost. "
― Danez Smith
2 " I invited him over and he stayed forever. I feed him all my bread, the old peppers turned to mush & fluorescent mold, the chicken thighs unthawed & boneless. He ask for more so I give him my left leg. He ask for more & I give him my lungs & lips. More still, and there goes my bladder. He eats it all, all of me, eats the whole damn house, & I live forever in him or maybe it's the other way around. I swallowed. I swallowed him whole & didn't even notice him thrashing inside me. "
3 " the b in debt is a silent black trapped "
― Danez Smith , Homie
4 " ...paradise is a world where everythingis a sanctuary & nothing is a gun... "
― Danez Smith , Don't Call Us Dead
5 " it's not a death sentence anymoreit's not death anymoreit's moreit's a sentence a sentence "
6 " the king's throne is wet with his brother's blood "
― Danez Smith , Black Movie
7 " i am equal parts sick of your go back to Africa & i just don't see race. neither did the poplar tree. "
8 " history is what it is. it knows what it did. "
9 " who knew my havenwould be my coffin?dead is the safest i've ever been.i've never been so alive. "
10 " some of us are killed in pieces, some of us all at once // do i think someone created AIDS? maybe. i don’t doubt that anything is possible in a place where you can burn a body with less outrage than a flag "
11 " i’ll plant a garden on top where your hurt stopped. "
12 " prediction: the cop will walk freeprediction: the boy will still be dead "
13 " i want to say something without saying itbut there’s no time. i’m waiting for a few folksi love dearly to die so i can be myself.please don’t make me say who. "
14 " & how many times have you loved me without my asking? how often have i loved a thing because you loved it? including me "
15 " Dear badge number.What did I do wrong? be born? be black? meet you? "
16 " i've left in search of a new God. i do not trust the God you have given us. my grandmother's hallelujah is only outdone by the fear she nurses every time the blood-fat summer swallows another child who used to sing in the choir. take you God back. though his songs are beautiful, his miracles are inconsistent. "
17 " little black boy on the bus with his toy dinosaur, his eyes wide & endless his dreams possible, pulsing, & right there "
18 " they murder us for the crime of their imaginations "
19 " what animorph did you want to be? i wanted to be the boy who turned into the bird limp in the dog’s wet mouth, holding me toward his human saying, i made this for you. "
20 " i spent my life arguing how i mattered until it didn’t matter. "
