I thought Mommy would give me love if I was the best daughter, the way my teachers gave me gold stars for being the best student. I was wrong. Love isn’t a reward. It is not something that you earn, win or achieve–it just is.

the nurses dished out paper cups of unlabeled pills the doctors handed us our diagnoses and if you questioned anything at all, they’d dish out punishments

I started swimming because it was the one thing that eased my anxiety as a kid. Existing in and moving my body through water was the only thing in life that felt effortless. The pool was my sanctuary, the place that took my anxious stomach aches away and returned me to my parents a different child.

I do not want to talk about fake news or making you great again. I want to talk about the immigrants with burning skin and an aching desire for the American dream that you drown in tears of gas.

She could soak overnight, and he’d still be there, clinging to her. She is a dirty, broken, sad, incurable sight. A dirty broken, sad, incurable thing.

There was a little girl with drugs in her pocket, / and sex in her knowledge, with addiction in her heart / living with no rest or solace.