Lobizona

Why settle for being a son of the system, when you can mother a movement?

Sometimes reality strays so far from what’s rational that we can only explain it through fantasy.

Plant your new garden with the seeds of equality, water it with tolerance and empathy, and warm it with the temperate heat of truth.

I think I was born wanting to see the stars.

When someone deviates from an accepted norm, they signal a gap in the system. A hole that hasn’t been plugged. The danger with exposing a foundation’s failings is it opens the door to the possibility that it’s a faulty structure altogether and should be torn down and built anew.

One day I waited for her to go to work, and the instant I was alone with Perla, I snapped. “My fucking life is ruled by more protocols than a Jane Austen character!” It might have been the nerdiest meltdown in history.

You can't let others' close mindedness impact your mindset. That's the quickest path to failure. The only thing you can control is yourself.

Manuela de La Mancha,” says a deep voice. It sounds strange to hear such a long name, but that’s the manada I’m pretending to be from. “Hola, Marilén,” I say to Tiago and Saysa’s great-grandmother, whom I met moments ago. “No sos bruja.” You’re not a witch. My tongue feels like sandpaper, and my mouth seals dry. Since our wolf-shadows roam outside the Citadel, and my fangs and claws are retracted, I didn’t think there would be any indicator of my identity— “No te preocupes, no vengo a interrogarte.” Don’t worry, I’m not here to interrogate you. She moves closer, and the way her steely eyes seem to see more than others reminds me of Perla. “Toda la vida soñé con conocerte,” she whispers. My whole life I’ve dreamt of meeting you. Her long black hair is in a tight, elegant bun that pulls her skin, stretching it so that if there’s a single wrinkle, I don’t see it. “La primera de nosotras que nació fuera de su jaula.” The first of us to be born outside her cage.

But why settle for being a son of the system, when you can mother a movement?

... If my life sucks, that just means it hasn't peaked yet I'm in the middle of my story and every tomorrow could be my happily ever after.

The texts are pristine, printed in colors so brilliant, the ink looks fresh. Every few feet, a spine pushes in between adjacent texts, like a new book has just been birthed. It’s a living library.

Anything you do that’s traditional wolf territory could be challenged by some zealot, and you could wind up before the tribunal. I’ve been studying their decisions, and they tend to be led by their pragmatism. Our world is gray, and rapidly gray-ing, and the tribunal navigates it by sticking to a determinedly black-and-white approach. They rule by the book and can’t be swayed by emotion. If you don’t fit the exact letter of the law, they see you as going against it.” “So what do I do?” “You can’t break a law that doesn’t apply to you.” “Meaning?” “If you’re undocumented, you’re unwritten. Embrace that.” “You’re saying if no one’s told my story before ... I get to tell it the way I want?” “Exactly.

If there's no word in any known vocabulary to encapsulate me, that just means language can't define me. A label can't hold me. I'm beyond classification. I'm an original. I'm - 'Undocumented.

Hay horrores en el mundo que resultan imposibles de explicar. El propio pueblo natal de García Márquez sufrió una masacre muy parecida a la de Macondo… A veces, la realidad se aleja tanto de lo que es racional que solo podemos explicarla a partir de la fantasía.

No matter how many borders we cross, we can’t seem to outrun the fear of not feeling safe in our own homes.

Why settle for being the son of a system, when you can mother a movement?

I'm a passenger not just in this vehicle, but in my body, in this country, in my life. Defined by decisions I didn't make.

Sometimes reality strays so far from what's rational that we can only explain it through fantasy.

Instead of begging them to let me go, I hear myself begging them to let me stay.