Alphareader - Danielle Binks

I am a dreamer too, and I must wake into a world of dreamers. You can feel it – can’t you? – the peeling off of me, another small loss you have to bear. We all bear it, as best we can, this infinite chain of miniature losses, a hundred thousand stories, a hundred thousand endings. A rehearsal you could call it, for the last ending that’s bound to come, eventually, somewhere in the white space between here and dreaming.

'Only Ever Always' by Penni Russon

A person is among all else a material thing, easily torn not easily mended.

'Atonement' by Ian McEwan

Listen. To live is to be marked. To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know. In perfect stillness, frankly, I've only ever found sorrow.

'The Poisonwood Bible' by Barbara Kingsolver 

Hard times ahead - but books community is exactly that, and we help each other ❤️

What I Will

by Suheir Hammad

I will not

dance to your war

drum. I will

not lend my soul nor

my bones to your war

drum. I will

not dance to your

beating. I know that beat.

It is lifeless. I know

intimately that skin

you are hitting. It

was alive once

hunted stolen

stretched. I will

not dance to your drummed

up war. I will not pop

spin break for you. I

will not hate for you or

even hate you. I will

not kill for you. Especially

I will not die

for you. I will not mourn

the dead with murder nor

suicide. I will not side

with you nor dance to bombs

because everyone else is

dancing. Everyone can be

wrong. Life is a right not

collateral or casual. I

will not forget where

I come from. I

will craft my own drum. Gather my beloved

near and our chanting

will be dancing. Our

humming will be drumming. I

will not be played. I

will not lend my name

nor my rhythm to your

beat. I will dance

and resist and dance and

persist and dance. This heartbeat is louder than

death. Your war drum ain’t

louder than this breath.

People died. Innocent people died Granda. And they were someone’s mother, father, daughter, son. Nothing can ever make that ok. And the people who took those lives, they’re just gonna walk free.