This Book is SO Relatable to My Teen Self and It Kills Me

"so why did you go? You just walked beside him, like a sheep to slaughter.” How do I say, I knew but wanted to be wrong. How do I say, I knew and knew it was somehow inevitable. How do I say, a sheep doesn’t really know about slaughter until their ears are full of screaming."

-Dear Medusa, Olivia A Cole 

"It’s people’s favorite way of dismissing girls like me or girls like anybody: “She’s just doing it for attention” Whether they’re talking about depression or tattoos or loud laughs or sex or rage If a girl is doing any of these things she is “doing it for attention” and I have to ask since when is that bad and since when did people forget that humans are like flowers— that we need water and light to grow?"

-Dear Medusa, Olivia A Cole 

"I don’t think he could comprehend how the flesh I wear is feral— that giving it kindness sends it farther into the trees, eyes glowing that it no longer understands softness when everything it touches turns to stone."

-Dear Medusa, Olivia A Cole 

"Sometimes I see a stranger and imagine what it would be like to hold their heart alongside my own, protecting it as my own. Sometimes I lock eyes with a stranger, not when I’m playing the Game but accidentally across a crowded store or sometimes on the bus and I wonder if for a moment in their head we’re married. My whole head is hypothetical: what if [this] happened what if [that] hadn’t Sometimes I’m waiting for my mom in the car outside the bank and across the parking lot glimpse my soul mate."

-Dear Medusa, Olivia A Cole 

"“You don’t even like him. If you don’t like it why do it?” And even in my head I don’t have an answer other than “At least I’m in control.”"

-Dear Medusa, Olivia A Cole 

"Although I wasn’t embarrassed at first. When you’re fourteen and just realizing maybe someone thinks you’re beautiful you can mistake the sound of howling for a heart song. It’s never a heart song. I thought I was receiving compliments at the bus stop. I thought it was about me but it’s about them: how something about a girl alone at a bus stop makes their fangs grow past their lips and the gathering feeling of saliva makes them want to spit these words into the sky."

-Dear Medusa, Olivia A Cole 

"some people are so focused on the things that are important to them that your wounds are insignificant. Maybe it doesn’t mean that they’re evil, but it doesn’t mean you’re not bleeding."

-Dear Medusa, Olivia A Cole