They Bloom at Night

It's strange, how little love you can survive on until you experience the warmth of people who choose you despite everything.

Monsterhood is a girl's body you don't belong in.

Every generation before had a semblance of chance, but we have the end of the world. This end of the world. It’s beautiful, it’s crushing, and I wish we could think of a future without a thousand ways of how we must change to endure it.

It's a bad habit of mine, finding the worst in every situation, but no one has taught me to hope.

Sometimes we need people to hunt the things inside of us that need to die but that we aren't ready to kill.

Can I be everything and nothing at the same time? Extra fat, extra parts, narrow bones. A shadow you know is there but whose shape remains unseen until it emerges on concrete. I want a body that’s easy to manipulate. What a gift that no one sees inside my mind. What a curse that no one sees inside my mind.

All the world's natural horrors do not compare to our humanmade ones.

What’s an ocean to a Vietnamese mother with a dream.

What a gift that no one sees inside my mind. What a curse that no one sees inside my mind.

Alligators might attack to defend their territory, but men attack to make their territory. Every body is a conquering ground.

You must do things you aren't ready for, or else it'll become a pattern.

Rage breaks all my boundaries.

Adults having their shit figured out is an illusion of childhood. You wake up one day and the mirage is gone. The soft gold sunlight now appears too yellow, too harsh. Your parents aren't bickering cutely but arguing, their faces red. Even when you're hurt, they will tell you your wounds aren't real. Better yet, put a sweater on it and hide away.

If this is the end of the world, I don’t want to be careful with my heart, my body.” I say, sure Saffy would be proud. “This is my choice. It’s me.

And I could’ve drowned in that senseless joy of standing and finding myself tall. Someone that can finally be seen in a mirror. A twin to my dad. But when I glanced back at the pile of flesh with the stretchmarks, I thought; that’s me too. Can I be everything and nothing at the same time? Extra fat, extra parts, narrow bones. A shadow you know is there but whose shape remains unseen until it emerges on concrete. I want a body that’s easy to manipulate. What a gift that no one sees inside my mind. What a curse that no one sees inside my mind.

My body’s not bad either for all it has lived through. There is no other home for me.

I am not a boy or a girl. Do you know the shape of water? Do you know clouds, and mountains, or every bud of wisteria at the height of spring? Your eyes follow me but you've never really seen me.

I've worn heavy clothes in hot weather long enough to know it doesn't stop men from teasing me or me blaming myself.

We can work hard all we want, but if the bootstraps are barely holding on by a thread, it snaps anyway. I’m tired of following the lessons set out by others. I want to find a new way forward, even if it takes deconstructing down to the marrow.

Mirrors show a you that no one else sees, and you begin to wonder if either is really truly you. Although I know better than to fall for it, I still think: is my nose too wide? Too flat? Is my hair too this, or that? Are there gills on my neck? Have I lost my mind? Am I a girl enough—the right kind? Going through life invisible is easier, but the temptation is still there to stand before a mirror and call the worst monsters to you. Candyman, Bloody Mary,

Maybe people across different cultures and times yearn for the same things—love, companionship, safety—and accept that there is a cost with the universe to get them.

That of all the classes I’d ever sat through, Sex Ed had been the most useless.

Never answer the knocks in the night,

The line between exemplar and threat has always been thin.

Covey, Wilder, and Saffy have given me a valuable lesson, in their own ways. Sometimes we need people to hunt the things inside of us that need to die but that we aren't ready to kill.

All the world's natural horror do not compare to our humanmade ones.

And yet .. why must I be the one to hide? I feel 14 again, only 14 and tasked with protecting herself. She alone is responsible for finding ways to walk without shame; places to go where no one knows how she has been ruined. Long before the bloom tucked us in, I have needed help. I scream, letting loose all the rage and self pity that has hardened me over the last two years. Mom has done enough damage by wishing away the truth. I said it before, a sweater doesn't keep me safe. This costume that everyone else sees can't protect me either. Hiding doesn't help, because I am the one existing in my skin.