Home > Author > Ashley C. Ford
101 " For me, panic radiates in the threads of my muscles, bangs in the back of my skull, twists my stomach, and sets my skin on fire. It doesn’t rise or fall. It spreads. "
― Ashley C. Ford , Somebody's Daughter
102 " She knew what I wanted, and she wanted me to know it would not be mine. We were locked in a power struggle, not that I would have known to call it that, and I was confused because I did not want power from my mother. I wanted her to acknowledge the pain in my body and heart. I wanted it to mean something to her because she loved me, and I knew it, and I couldn't understand why she couldn't just say sorry. What was so wrong with me that I didn't deserve that? "
103 " was tempted, as I always am, to take the bait when my mother offers me empathy. Tempted by my fantastical belief that one day I will lower my walls, and she will do the same. "
104 " I repeated the word "sunrise," and the sound opened like a spring bloom on the tip of my tongue. There are few words worthy of the wonders they describe, but sunrise sounds like it feels. A 'u' sunken to the bottom of one's throat, and an 'i' pointing upward and onward to a warm beyond. "
― Ashley C. Ford
105 " It doesn't take long for children to teach themselves not to want what they've already learned they won't have. "
106 " Ashley, you're the only person who has to live in your skin, and wake up with the consequences of your choices. That's why you can't let other people make the big choices for you. You have to do what it feels right to do, and you can't let anybody stop you. "
107 " My mother wasn’t perfect. Our relationship was complicated, and difficult. She was my imperfect mother. We were two different people, and found that hard to accept in one another. But I was hers and she was mine. "
108 " I was the fish on the table between us, pushed into myself so hard I would soon snap in half. "
109 " Instead of feeling closed in by the silence, I felt expanded by it, part of it, and it welcomed me unlike anything I'd known so far. "
110 " When I was four years old, I taught myself to lie awake until morning. I wanted the sunrise, and I only had to stay awake to have her. When children are small, our desires seem small, even if we want the sky. "
111 " I'd hoped to snatch a little time alone and spend it singing, spinning or whispering to my shadow. "
112 " Nobody had to tell their secrets. "
113 " For the most part, up until this point, my mother’s fear had assisted her in meeting her most necessary goals. She had no reason to believe it might kill her until it tried to do just that. "
114 " I told my shadow I wanted to keep the sun. My shadow whispered back the instructions for making a memory. "
115 " I rolled around with my cousins in the grass behind our shared home at all hours of the day, staring into the sky, trying to make them laugh. We were all happiest together. "
116 " It sounded like a joy I couldn’t feel anymore, but sometimes, I remembered it. It "
117 " For half a minute, I knew I had it in me to tell the truth, and be loved anyway. "
118 " My mother, who only cried like the tears were being ripped from her face... "
119 " For that, this is not pretty enough. "
120 " I wanted to finally get started on a life that felt like mine. "