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21 " Every time I think "I am very lonely," it becomes bleaker and more true. You can think things into being. You can dwell them up from the ground. "
― Sophie Mackintosh , The Water Cure
22 " Crying lays you low and vulnerable, racks your body. If water is the cure for what ails us, the water that comes from our own faces and hearts is the wrong sort. It has absorbed our pain and is dangerous to let loose. "
23 " He spoke of bodies grown strong despite the toxic air, men like trees grown against the wind, knotted, warped. Some thrived on the poison; it was like their bodies had learned not just to overcome, but to need it. "
24 " The supple water is forever changing. It's almost like it never happened, which gives me hope that one day it will be like it never happened. "
25 " There is a fluidity to his movements despite his size that tells me he has never had to justify his existence, has never had to fold himself into a hidden thing and I wonder what that must be like- to know that your body is irreproachable. "
26 " Midsummer of the year I ran away, Lia and I had discovered we liked to tan with our tops off in the old greenhouse. It was ripe with oxygen. Smashed pots everywhere. We dragged cushions from our own bedrooms to lie on, and opened up the panels in the glass roof for air. We were closed in but it was our own decision, for once. The glossy leaves of abandoned foliage sheltered our bodies. We had not yet learned that they were shameful. "
27 " One day I looked at my husband and I thought, Would you knock them down? Would you stand up with your arms raised if they came for me? Coming for me was a thing I considered often, though the 'they' was hazy, it changed all the time. Once I had thought this bad thought, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I thought it when he was asleep and I was awake. No, I realized one day. He would lie down and let them. "
28 " Easy to be friendly when you want something,” she tells her. “See if you think they’re so friendly when they’re cutting your throat. "
29 " Llew puts the lid down without comment, pushes the stool back. There is a fluidity to his movements, despite his size, that tells me he has never had to fold himself into s hidden thing, and I wonder what that must be like, to know his body is irreproachable. "
30 " The real trick is how and why we continue surviving at all. "
31 " She was just like every other woman. Eager and tender-hearted. That knot of grief in her chest begging to be undone. "
32 " Love as a protest within my body. Or perhaps it’s just that I am unused to touch, am out of practice. Bodies do not lie. This all acts as proof that he has touched me here, here, here. "
33 " Absorbing the guilt and the sorrow is something the world expects of women. "
34 " I don't know what this love is capable of, but as I study his face--angles, the soft curl of lips, his eyes closed now--I believe it could do anything. "
35 " Sometimes she was my enemy and sometimes she was just my mother, an enemy in a different way. "
36 " I have always been afraid of her ability to pull the rug out from underneath us, her capacity for cruelty and kindness in the same sentence, same action. "
37 " What must it be like, to live in a world that wants to kill you? Where every breath is an affront? "
38 " The mark my body has left on his is fading already. My whole strength has barely any effect. My anger cannot touch him, cannot even be taken seriously. "
39 " Mother discussed with us the importance of examining every action of our bodies. Step always with caution. The body is the purest sort of alarm. If something feels wrong, it probably is. "
40 " The world has not been kind to him, I can tell, yet he loves it anyway. It is a man's place. His survival is implicit, a survival taken for granted. "