I grieve the men I mistook for one another and the mistakes I mistook for men. - Saeed Jones

People don’t just happen. We sacrifice former versions of ourselves. We sacrifice the people who dared to raise us. The “I” it seems doesn’t exist until we are able to say, “I am no longer yours.” My grandmother and I, without knowing it, were faithfully following a script that had already been written for us. A woman raises a boy into a man, loving him so intensely that her commitment finally repulses him.

...and because you’re young and don’t know the difference between abandoned and alone just like your mother’s heart won’t know the difference between beat and attack.

I will say for myself: America, I did the best I could with what I was given.