Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

I wanted to protect you, but I'm starting to think that the best thing you can do for people is teach them how to protect themselves. Every girl needs to be at least a little dangerous.

A sanctuary is a place where the door only locks from the inside

You will be able to stop hurting people when you stop hurting yourself.

That's the difference between love and hunger," she says. "Hunger is a story you gt stuck in. Love's the story that takes you somewhere new.

Sometimes to be somebody else, you have to be nobody first

Little cocoon apartment, I love how you rattle and shake in the wind. You are mine like nothing has ever been before. Someday you'll tear open, and I'll fly out with the wings I have grown inside you. Still shimmering. Still wet.

It's actually a very old archetype that trans girl stories get put into: this sort of tragic, plucky-little-orphan character who is just supposed to suffer through everything and wait, and if you're good and brave and patient (and white and rich) enough, then you get the big reward...which is that you get to be just like everybody else who is white and rich and boring. And then you marry the prince or the football player and live boringly ever after.

We sit together and wait. For the time to pass. For the memories to fade. For the waiting to be over

The world spins and spins. Sometimes, there is nothing you can do but surrender. There is nothing you can do but stand in your best friend's dingy kitchen and bake cakes and cry and hope hope hope for something better to come. Nothing you do will ever stop the world turning, will ever tilt the planet off its axis. All revolutions are futile in the end.

It's good for you to cry sometimes. Even if there isn't a reason.

...I feel tired. I don't want to be myself anymore.

Some people will cling on to anything that makes them feel even a little bit free.

My parents had been hungry for so long that it filtered into all of their emotions and all of their dreams. They saw the world through hunger-tinted glasses, so that every plate looked a little less full of food than it really was and every paycheque (never large enough to begin with) seemed even smaller. When they looked at me and my sister, even their love was hungry.

Honey, you hurt yourself,” she says, “because every- body around you hurts people and is hurting and that’s just the story you were given. You can’t get stuck in that. Don’t get stuck in any one story, not even your own. “That’s the difference between love and hunger,” she says. “Hunger is a story you get stuck in. Love’s the story that takes you somewhere new.

Kimaya's smile is a key: it opens doors to places that I desperately want and am afraid to go. It is a map, guiding the way. It is warm butter, melting on toast. It feels like sisterhood. It feels like open arms. It feels like home.

When they looked at me and my sister, even their love was hungry.

Kimaya is also looking in the mirror, and I meet her gaze there. There is a look I do not like in her expression, a hint of something that doesn’t match her sweet tone and seems totally alien for my warm, generous femme sister. It is a look like I might wear—eyes narrow and lips pursed. She’s peering at herself, not liking what she sees. And I think about how fish means jealousy among femmes. About how we are all so hungry for what each other has, when the truth is none of us has enough to begin with. I think about how strange and funny it is that there are many femmes who would kill, who would sell their souls to Dr. Crocodile, for the chance to leave the Street of Miracles, when all my life I have been running toward it. And I think about how Kimaya is right, how fish means opportunity and privilege. Someday, I may swim away from here into another place. I remember my little sister back in Gloom, and how escaping always seems to mean leaving someone behind.

That's the difference between hunger and love," she says. "Hunger is a story you get stuck in. Love's the story that takes you somewhere new.

My father taught me how to kill a man with my bare hands. He was a martial arts expert back in the day, having grown up in an honest-to-god Shaolin temple and all, and he thought that punching and kicking stuff would make me a man. It didn't work out for him, but the skills have proven quite useful.

My parents had been hungry for so long that it filtered into all of their emotions and all of their dreams. They saw the world through hunger-tinted glasses, so that every plate looked a little less full of food than it really was and every paycheque seemed even smaller. When they looked at me and my sister, even their love was hungry.

When you fight back, when you hurt people, it makes them stop loving you, Charity. I don't want that for you.

Honey, you hurt yourself,” she says, “because everybody around you hurts people and is hurting and that’s just the story you were given. You can’t get stuck in that. Don’t get stuck in any one story, not even your own. “That’s the difference between love and hunger,” she says. “Hunger is a story you get stuck in. Love’s the story that takes you somewhere new.

Sometimes, the world just won't stop spinning and spinning, unwinding itself like a spool of thread. Trailing strings of broken bodies and forgotten things through grey, empty space.

so silly to think that i could ever leave you behind...

Once you start hurting, people you can't stop.

Forget, if you can, all the promises you've ever made and the lies that you've told.

Sometimes, to become somebody else, you have to become nobody first.

I would feel my whole body clenching up with hungry hope was I planned my Great Escape.