182 Quotes by Aspen Matis

I felt a thrill—a new civil affinity budding in my dreams and in the brick-and-mortar city, simultaneously: that we, the people, were awakening to the truth that a bundle of twigs is inconceivably strong.

In the small hours of a cold February dawn, Justin and I walked to the Pacific, high cliffs eroding over the ocean, crashed and crashed by lapping salty waves. Their spray misted us in day’s young purple air, exhilarating. Walking the Golden Gate Bridge, our world receding, pale gold sunrise lit thin fog, morning coloring us like a faded fairy tale.

The only comfort I found was in planning to disappear.

A backlit mist bathed the Cascade foothills in silver as Justin and I pledged our love before a justice of the peace. Standing in the same lush mountains where we’d first met, we exchanged rings, grinning on a stone stage in a fog-flowered forest clearing.

Today, humans in cities will see a hundred beings in just minutes, naming them strangers, a dehumanizing designation.

You don’t need extra food, extra water, extra clothing for extra warmth – anything extra. You don’t need soap or deodorant. Everything you carry you should need daily.

Shaking my head, I grinned in my defiance, and the room and the whole world became soft and buzzing, lights dangerously unfocused. Our shadows intermingled, a Chagall on the pale wood floor. My thoughts sudden and intriguing, like a rainbow you see for only a second—

We opened a second bottle of Merlot on the soft leather of our pretty mint-green couch. I’d been intoxicated only a handful of instances in my life. Bittersweet truth blooming, a dandelion in my heart, I confessed to him that I was feeling rootless. I whispered in the small cave of my love’s ear, “I am a lost ship.

I saw for the first time that I could stop giving people the power to make me feel disrespected. In my anger I began to see the absurdity of allowing this boy to shame me.