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

Models of justice that centre punishment do not prevent abuse but only react to it, and they don’t offer a pathway toward healing for either perpetrators or survivors. Nor do they acknowledge the dual reality that a great many perpetrators are themselves survivors.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Safety is, I believe, an inherently classed, raced, and gendered experience that frequently runs the risk of being used for regressive ends – ironically, for restricting the freedoms of the vulnerable, those who are never really safe. Often, we see the call for safety actually reinforce the power of oppressive institutions, like the police and the prison system, in our lives. When we choose safety over liberation, our movements fail.

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.