“We face each other, two candles flickering. Sami's sweat smells of chamomile and musk. When we dance, I am a bird shaking loose the night from its wings. I kiss him, my hand behind his jaw, his hands in my hair. He gasps into my mouth and goes soft as water, our bodies molten glass that I am shaping with my kiss, and I wonder if it's true that there is nothing on this earth that is not born of the sweet ache of flame.” LoveKissingAche Book:The Thirty Names of Night Source: The Thirty Names of Night
“I bow my head under her hands. "I couldn't do it anymore, Teat." "My storm of storms." She tips the top of my head toward her and kisses it. "You never had to try.” LoveAcceptance Book:The Thirty Names of Night Source: The Thirty Names of Night
“No boy has ever moved me the way you did that afternoon on the corniche. This is not how I am supposed to feel. The lack of you hurts. You are the knife with which I cut myself.” LoveLossGriefLongingYearning Book:The Thirty Names of Night Source: The Thirty Names of Night
“For every poet knows that the sea herself has never loved, beloved, and she is thick with our tears. Only the desert knows what love is. Only the desert opens herself when the rains come, breathing in our pain, breathing out acacia and tamarisk and flowers. Only the wadi knows what it is to hold its breath. Only the wadi knows what it is to cry for joy, saying, yes, there was death here and will be death again one day, and between the two are laughter and the rhythmic breathing in of generations.” LoveLifeDeathGenerationsSeaLaughterDesert Book:The Map of Salt and Stars Source: The Map of Salt and Stars
“I have been taught all my life that masculinity means short hair and square-toed shoes, taking up space, raising one's voice. To be soft is to be less of a man. To be gentle, to laugh, to create art, to bleed between the legs—I have been taught all my life that these things make me a woman. I have been taught all my life that to dance is to be vulnerable, and that the world will crush the vulnerable. I was taught to equate invincibility with being worthy of love. But here in the darkness of this abandoned subway platform, I can almost imagine a world big enough for boys like Sami and me to love each other, to dance and let the pain out of our bodies, to breathe and make love and be enough and be enough and be enough.” LoveGenderMasculinityTransTransmasc Book:The Thirty Names of Night Source: The Thirty Names of Night