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nothing lasts forever

all we have is tote bags

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constantly coming to terms with the fact that you did the best you could, at the time, with what you had

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(early June)

i was expecting the damage to be worse, more devastating

i was expecting something that went up so quickly, burned so bright, to have left a shell and taken down everything around it

did it cause an explosion? starting a hundred tiny little fires all around?

they say where there's smoke there's fire

and i have seen the aftermath, gutted

at times i have been terrified

and struggling, to not get burned

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You get far enough into winter and you no longer believe it was ever warm or ever will be again.

Saint X: A Novel by Alexis Schaitkin

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This was upstate New York, where the snow layered upon itself, rising like one of those out-of-control lemon meringue pies in the glass case at the Underhill Diner.

The Interestings: A Novel by Meg Wolitzer

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Whiteness is the distinction many of us cling to when we have nothing else.

Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays by Eula Biss

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“I think you should define the word ‘gentrification,’ ” my husband tells me now. I ask him what he would say it means, and he pauses for a long moment. “It means that an area is generally improved,” he says finally, “but in such a way that everything worthwhile about it is destroyed.”

Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays by Eula Biss

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Our world inspires a certain level of paranoia. Perhaps it is a measure of intelligence—after all, everyone is being watched and controlled within borders they didn’t determine, exchanging paper someone else told us is valuable for things of actual value, living under a dangerous government since forever.

Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good (Emergent Strategy) by adrienne maree brown, Rodriguez, and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

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inspiring fear in others is often seen as neighborly and kindly, instead of being regarded as what my cousin recognized it for—a violence.

Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays by Eula Biss

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caring for ourselves is “not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare."

Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good (Emergent Strategy) by adrienne maree brown, Rodriguez, and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

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She remembered it was August and they say August brings bad luck. But September would arrive one day like an exit. And September was for some reason a lighter and more transparent month.

Clarice Lispector, from The Complete Stories; “In Search for a Dignity,” (via writemeanna)

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When the baby cries, she could be hungry or thirsty or angry or cranky or sick or sleepy or paranoid or jealous or she had planned something but it went horribly awry. So you'll need to take care of that when it happens.

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

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particular neighborhoods are not as dangerous as the conditions within those neighborhoods. It’s a fine line but an important one, because if you don’t live in those conditions, you aren’t very likely to get killed. Not driving through, not walking through, not even renting an apartment.

Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays by Eula Biss

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Part of the reason so few of us have a healthy relationship with pleasure is because a small minority of our species hoards the excess of resources, creating a false scarcity and then trying to sell us joy, sell us back to ourselves.

Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good (Emergent Strategy) by adrienne maree brown, Rodriguez, and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

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cats are like. i am very small and have cute little triangle ears. also locking me out of the bathroom is a hate crime