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101 " maybe we're doing our train audience a favor.Reminding them of first love. "
― Elizabeth Acevedo , The Poet X
102 " Because her hands will be scraped raw from work but she still folds them to pray. "
103 " And isn’t that what a poem is? A lantern glowing in the dark. "
104 " Y sus palabras son como el quemador de una cocina de gas, el clic, clic mientras esperas que encienda y que la llama sea azul y grande… Eso ha pasado cuando he leído la nota de la profesora. "
105 " And my heart is one of Darwin’s finches learning to fly. "
106 " I can't remember the last time people were silentwhile I spoke, actually listening "
107 " Mami was born en La Capital, in a barrio of thirst buckets/who wrote odes to her legs,/but the only man Mami wanted/was nailed to a cross. "
108 " Tú dices que todo estoes culpa de mi boca.Porque tenía hambre,porque era callada.pero ¿y la boca tuya?Cómo tus labios son grapasque me perforan rápido y fuerte.Y las palabras que nunca dijequedan mejor muertas en mi lenguaporque solamente hubieran chocadocontra la puerta cerrada de tu espalda.Tu silencio amuebla una casa oscura.Pero aun a riesgo de quemarse,la mariposa nocturna siempre busca la luz "
109 " and she better not hear about me hanging out like a wet shirt on a clothesline just waiting to be worn "
110 " And now his smile is a little sad. And I think about all the things we could be if we were never told our bodies were not built for them. "
111 " Even with my Amazon frame, I feel too small for all that’s inside me. I want to break myself open like an egg smacked hard against an edge. Teachers always say that each school year is a new start: but even before this day I think I’ve been beginning. "
112 " Y yo pienso en todo lo que podríamos ser si no se nos dijera que nuestros cuerpos no están diseñados para hacerlo. "
113 " It’s one of the few things Twin and I argue about, how he never has to do half the cleaning shit I do but is still better liked by Mami. "
114 " And this woman I've feared, this woman who has been both mother and monster,the biggest sun in my sky-bright, blinding, burning me to the wick-she hunches her shoulders and begins to sob.Silent, silent crying that shakes her whole body.And I am stuck, and still. Before I go to her. "
115 " Maybe, the only thing that has to make sense about being somebody’s friend is that you help them be their best self on any given day. That you give them a home when they don’t want to be in their own. At least "
116 " Twin steps into his feelings like they’re a gated-off room I don’t have visitation rights to. "
117 " God just wants me to behave so I can earn being alive. "
118 " Debería estar acostumbrada. No debería enfadarme tanto cuando los chicos —y a veces hombres mayores— me hablan como quieren, creen que pueden tocarse o frotarse contra mí o hacer todo tipo de ofrecimientos. "
119 " Aun con la pandereta y los cánticos festivos, estos días, la iglesia parece menos fiesta y más prisión. "
120 " I only know that learning to believe in the power of my own words has been the most freeing experience of my life. It has brought me the most light. "