Top 15 Lisa Suhair Majaj Quotes

Part of it hides behind the headlines
where this shard of the story will never be told.

These words are the weight
cupped in our palms:
the small broken note of freedom.

how a word transforms us
seedling taking delicate hold
or a weed choking the tender plants
news enters us and puts down roots

soon syllables will fall from her lips
the first rain

No matter how far you've come, remember:
the starting line is always closer than you think.

We learned to let our faces hide
our selves, to speak our story in a private
tongue, the past a shadow in our bones.

Remember the splintered staccato
of bullets against rock, the way dust rose
in the stunned aftershock of silence?

Who knew the past would follow us so far,
years collapsing like an ancient accordion,
scraps of memory tucked like torn photographs
into the sockets of our eyes?

what's left but
shards of memory
smoothed and hoarded,
shrapnel griefs,
a few regrets?

She took her slice of life
then gave without measuring
or counting

ground resilient beneath our feet, sky
glimmering
between branches of trees older than any of us.

Once she could have held anything steady
and safe: a glass of tea, her brother's baby.
Now her hands shake at the weight of a fork.

so I hoard memories
sort them for seeds to plant
pray they root

The distance between one breath and another
is like the miles starlight travels to reach
my dreams.

consider a delicate porcelain bowl
how it crushes under a single blow-
in one moment whole years disappear